Traditional Knowledge and the Public Domain in Intellectual Property

2019 ◽  
pp. 249-275 ◽  
Author(s):  
Ruth L. Okediji
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Traditional Knowledge ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
The Public

scholarly journals Protection of Traditional Knowledge: Trade Barriers and the Public Domain

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
David R. Hansen
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Traditional Knowledge ◽  
The United States ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Trade Barriers ◽  
Motivating Factors ◽  
International Protection ◽  
The Public ◽  
Indigenous Groups ◽  
The Right

In recent years, developing nations have pushed for international copyright and other intellectual property regimes to expand protection over the cultural heritage and collective knowledge of particular indigenous groups. These “traditional knowledge” protections have been justified by factors like economic protection, equity in intellectual property ownership, cultural protection, and economic development. These motivating factors are a far cry from the underpinnings of traditional Western intellectual property law - and in particular, U.S. copyright law - which focuses on incentivizing the creation of new content for the promotion of “the Progress of Science and useful Arts.” Because of these differing justifications, traditional knowledge protections at the international level have generated some degree of friction between the developed and the developing world. So far, much of the debate focuses on the “political” and “real” costs and benefits of traditional knowledge rights, but there is little discussion of the legal consequences of current protections. Given the underlying ideological conflict, some legal dissension is likely to occur regarding enforcement and protection of traditional knowledge rights. This paper examines “positive” traditional knowledge protections, which provide copyright-like rights over content, including the right exclude, license, and profit from these works. In many cases these protections regulate works that Western eyes would view as in the public domain. Initiatives to provide international protection for traditional knowledge expressions have blithely proceeded without much regard for the potential consequences under existing international law. This paper makes the point that at least some existing traditional knowledge protections not only conflict with IP-policy norms of the United States and the European Community, but also that these protections violate the very terms of TRIPS and GATT. As work toward international protection of traditional knowledge progresses, policy makers should be aware of these legal incompatibilities and how they evidence the deep conflict between expansive traditional knowledge protections and Western IP policy.Cite as David R. Hansen, Protection of Traditional Knowledge: Trade Barriers and the Public Domain, 58 J. Copyright Soc’y U.S.A. 757 (2011)

scholarly journals Governing Knowledge: Intellectual Property Management for Development and the Public Interest

2015 ◽  
Vol 66 ◽  
pp. 69-88
Author(s):  
Leonardo Burlamaqui
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Policy Recommendations ◽  
Public And Private ◽  
The Public ◽  
Private Interests ◽  
Intellectual Property Management ◽  
Analytical Perspective ◽  
The Right

The core point of this paper is the hypothesis that in the field of intellectual property rights and regulations, the last three decades witnessed a big change. The boundaries of private (or corporate) interests have been hyper-expanded while the public domain has significantly contracted. It tries to show that this is detrimental to innovation diffusion and productivity growth. The paper develops the argument theoretically, fleshes it out with some empirical evidence and provides a few policy recommendations on how to redesign the frontiers between public and private spaces in order to produce a more democratic and development-oriented institutional landscape. The proposed analytical perspective developed here, “Knowledge Governance”, aims to provide a framework within which, in the field of knowledge creation and diffusion, the dividing line between private interests and the public domain ought to be redrawn. The paper’s key goal is to provide reasoning for a set of rules, regulatory redesign and institutional coordination that would favor the commitment to distribute (disseminate) over the right to exclude.Keywords: knowledge management, intellectual property, patent, public, interest, public sector, private sector, socioeconomic developmen

scholarly journals Property on the Line: Life on the Frontier between Copyright and the Public Domain

2013 ◽  
Vol 44 (1) ◽  
pp. 1
Author(s):  
Graeme W Austin
Keyword(s):  
Human Rights ◽  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Copyright Law ◽  
Human Rights Law ◽  
Line Life ◽  
The Public ◽  
Inaugural Lecture ◽  
Creativity And Innovation ◽  
The Relationship

This article is an edited transcript of Professor Graeme W Austin's Inaugural Lecture, delivered in the Council Chamber of Victoria University of Wellington on 15 November 2012. Professor Austin was appointed Chair in Private Law in the Faculty of Law in November 2010. This lecture explores claims that in copyright law, the public domain is necessarily in opposition to proprietary rights, and suggests that in many contexts the incentives offered by copyright contribute to the vibrancy and volume of material that is available for downstream creativity and innovation. Drawing on his earlier work on the relationship between human rights law and intellectual property, Professor Austin's lecture advances the idea that cognisance of the human rights dimensions of intellectual property, including creators' human rights, should inform our understanding of the appropriate scope of the rights of copyright owners. The lecture concludes with a warning against the "Walmartization" of copyright.

scholarly journals Guarding a Cultural Icon: Concurrent Intellectual Property Regimes and the Perpetual Protection of Anne of Green Gables in Canada

2011 ◽  
Vol 56 (4) ◽  
pp. 1011-1055 ◽  
Author(s):  
Andrea Slane
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Public Interest ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
The Other ◽  
Property Law ◽  
Cultural Significance ◽  
The Public ◽  
Public Benefit ◽  
Anne Of Green Gables ◽  
Property Regimes

This article uses the various intellectual property protections afforded to the classic children’s novel Anne of Green Gables as a means of illustrating the blurring between copyright, trademark, and official marks regimes in Canada. By not keeping these regimes distinct, the author argues, Canadian intellectual property law seriously threatens the integrity of the public domain, a central means by which an appropriate balance is struck between the interests of authors, other cultural producers, and the public at large. The blurring between regimes is located in three conceptual sites: origin in copyright versus source in trademark; reputation in copyright versus goodwill in trademark; and the weak requirement that a public authority serve a "public benefit" in order to qualify for official marks protection, without any consideration of the public interest served by the limitations on protections built into the other intellectual property regimes. Reinforcing the distinctions between regimes and clarifying the public benefit requirement for official marks would help protect the public domain from unjustified encroachments that potentially deprive us of access to creative works of shared cultural significance.

Political Framework of the Production and Use of Seeds in Venezuela

2015 ◽  
pp. 191-210
Author(s):  
Vladimir Aguilar Castro
Keyword(s):  
Intellectual Property ◽  
Property Rights ◽  
Traditional Knowledge ◽  
Intellectual Property Rights ◽  
National Level ◽  
Public Domain ◽  
Local Communities ◽  
New Varieties ◽  
Animal Material ◽  
Biological Reproduction

Political and legal developments addressed to protect traditional knowledge are the result of huge efforts made by different actors at international and at national level. Nevertheless, traditional knowledge is broadly understood as freely accessible. Intellectual property norms are highly developed and strongly protect some knowledge products that are excluded of public domain, such as new varieties of plants. In light of this situation, political and legal tensions emerge in different countries, especially when it has an impact on areas highly profitable for some industries. This is the case of multinational agricultural companies that act globally by using technologies protected by intellectual property rights, threating traditional expressions applied for the use and conservation of seeds by local communities in different countries. In Venezuela, such tensions are present in the 2002 Law about Seeds, Animal Material and Supplies for Biological Reproduction, which is analyzed in this chapter.

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