The Sorcerer II expedition: Intellectual property and biodiscovery

This article considers the significance of a leading marine biodiscovery initiative. In March 2004, Dr. J. Craig Venter announced the official launch of the Sorcerer II Expedition, a scientific expedition of discovery, which would survey marine and terrestrial microbial populations. The Expedition has the potential to uncover tens of thousands of new microbial species and tens of millions of new genes. Venter has disavowed that the Sorcerer II Expedition has any commercial ambitions. However, some have viewed the Sorcerer II Expedition with suspicion. Various civil society groups have accused the Expedition of engaging in 'biopiracy'. This article investigates the Convention on Biological Diversity 1992 and other relevant international treaties, various national and regional regimes to govern access to genetic resources, and benefit-sharing agreements. It considers the intersection of intellectual property law, contract law, environmental law, and international law in this field. This article provides a blueprint for a nationally consistent scheme for access to genetic resources, and a model for future international developments.

The Doha deadlock: Intellectual property and climate change

In November 2001, Doha hosted trade talks over intellectual property and public health. The discussions resulted in the landmark Doha Declaration on the TRIPS Agreement and Public Health. The Doha Declaration recognised “that the TRIPS Agreement does not and should not prevent members from taking measures to protect public health” - particularly in relation to HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, malaria and other epidemics.

Climate change and human rights: Intellectual property challenges and opportunities

Mitigating and adapting to the effects of climate change will require innovation and the development of new technologies. Intellectual property laws have a key part to play in the global transfer of climate technologies. However, failures to properly utilize flexibilities in intellectual property regimes or comply with technology transfer obligations under international climate change agreements calls for a human rights based analysis of climate technology transfer. Climate change is an unprecedented challenge and requires unprecedented strategies. Given the substantial impact of climate change on all of humanity and the ethical imperative to act, a complete rethink of traditional intellectual property approaches is warranted. This report proposes a series of intellectual property law policy options, through a human rights framework, aimed at promoting access to technologies to reduce the human suffering caused by climate change.

Intellectual Property Chapter in Part 18: Intellectual Property and Communications

This chapter addresses the areas more commonly found in everyday practice (NB circuit layouts and plant breeder's rights are not covered). Importantly, IP law has become very specialised, and as such one for which practitioners will need expertise or access to relevant experts in order to properly provide advice. The following therefore is an overview only of relevant issues.

Save Left Shark: Katy Perry, Intellectual Property, and 3D Printing

There has been much interest in how intellectual property law, policy and practice will adapt to the emergence of 3D printing and the maker movement. Intellectual property lawyers will have to grapple with the impact of additive manufacturing upon a variety of forms of intellectual property — including copyright law, trade mark law, designs law, patent law and trade secrets. The disruptive technology of 3D printing will both pose opportunities and challenges for legal practitioners and policy makers.A performance by pop princess Katy Perry at the 2015 Super Bowl has sparked a public controversy over intellectual property, internet memes and 3D printing.

Inventing the Future: Intellectual Property and 3D Printing

A new technology – 3D printing – has the potential to make radical changes to aspects of the way in which we live. Put simply, it allows people to download designs and turn them into physical objects by laying down successive layers of material. Replacements or parts for household objects such as toys, utensils and gadgets could become available at the press of a button. With this innovation, however, comes the need to consider impacts on a wide range of forms of intellectual property, as Dr Matthew Rimmer explains. 3D Printing is the latest in a long line of disruptive technologies – including photocopiers, cassette recorders, MP3 players, personal computers, peer to peer networks, and wikis – which have challenged intellectual property laws, policies, practices, and norms. As The Economist has observed, ‘Tinkerers with machines that turn binary digits into molecules are pioneering a whole new way of making things—one that could well rewrite the rules of manufacturing in much the same way as the PC trashed the traditional world of computing.’

Free software and the law. Out of the frying pan and into the fire: How shaking up intellectual property suits competition law just fine

Free software is viewed as a revolutionary and subversive practice, and in particular has dealt a strong blow to the traditional conception of intellectual property law (although in its current form could be considered a 'hack' of IP rights). However, other (capitalist) areas of law have been swift to embrace free software, or at least incorporate it into its own tenets. One area in particular is that of competition (antitrust) law, which itself has long been in theoretical conflict with intellectual property, due to the restriction on competition inherent in the grant of ‘monopoly’ rights by copyrights, patents and trademarks. This contribution will examine how competition law has approached free software by examining instances in which courts have had to deal with such initiatives, for instance in the Oracle Sun Systems merger, and the implications that these decisions have on free software initiatives. The presence or absence of corporate involvement in initiatives will be an important factor in this investigation, with it being posited that true instances of ‘commons-based peer production’ can still subvert the capitalist system, including perplexing its laws beyond intellectual property.

Copyright and Data

ANDS Guides http://ands.org.au/guides/index.html These guides provide information about ANDS services and some fundamental issues in data-intensive research and research data management. These are not rules, prescriptions or proscriptions. They are guidelines and checklists to inform and broaden the range of possibilities for researchers, data managers, and research organisations.

Copyright and creative innovation in China : an evolutionary approach?

China has made great progress in constructing comprehensive legislative and judicial infrastructures to protect intellectual property rights. But levels of enforcement remain low. Estimates suggest that 90% of film and music products consumed in China are ‘pirated’ and in 2009 81% of the infringing goods seized at the US border originated from China. Despite of heavy criticism over its failure to enforce IPRs, key areas of China’s creative industries, including film, mobile-music, fashion and animation, are developing rapidly. This paper explores how the rapid expansion of China’s creative economy might be reconciled with conceptual approaches that view the CIs in terms of creativity inputs and IP outputs. It argues that an evolutionary understanding of copyright’s role in creative innovation might better explain China’s experiences and provide more general insights into the nature of the creative industries and the policies most likely to promote growth in this sector of the economy.

Alternative systems for Intellectual Property in the digital age

This paper investigates the current turbulent state of copyright in the digital age, and explores the viability of alternative compensation systems that aim to achieve the same goals with fewer negative consequences for consumers and artists. To sustain existing business models associated with creative content, increased recourse to DRM (Digital Rights Management) technologies, designed to restrict access to and usage of digital content, is well underway. Considerable technical challenges associated with DRM systems necessitate increasingly aggressive recourse to the law. A number of controversial aspects of copyright enforcement are discussed and contrasted with those inherent in levy based compensation systems. Lateral exploration of the copyright dilemma may help prevent some undesirable societal impacts, but with powerful coalitions of creative, consumer electronics and information technology industries having enormous vested interest in current models, alternative schemes are frequently treated dismissively. This paper focuses on consideration of alternative models that better suit the digital era whilst achieving a more even balance in the copyright bargain.

Intellectual property and development : theory and practice

Since the 1960s, many developing countries have introduced IP laws to help them in their social and economic development. Introducing these laws was considered as a civilised act and a precondition of developing countries‘ progress from being =under-developed‘ to becoming =developed‘. In 2004, Brazil and Argentina presented a comprehensive proposal on behalf of developing countries to establish the Development Agenda in the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). They put forward a view that IP laws in their current form are not helping those countries in their development, as is constantly being suggested by developed countries, and that there is a need to rethink the international IP system and the work of WIPO. The research undertaken examines the correlation between IP and social and economic development. It investigates how IP systems in developing countries could work to advance their development, especially in the context of the internet. The research considers the theory and practice of IP and development, and proposes a new IP framework which developing countries could employ to further their social and economic development.

Intellectual property and joint ventures

This chapter outlines the most important ways in which intellectual property is protected in Australia, and also the factors which affect the rights of joint venture participants in the absence of specific agreement between such participants. It then examines particular issues which may be considered in preparing appropriate documentation for any joint venture which involves the utilisation or generation of intellectual property to ensure that the joint venture participants achieve their desired result in terms of the allocation of ownership and control of such rights. The analysis includes and explanation of the special considerations which affect co-operation in research between industry and a university or government research institution. Finally, the rights of the joint venturers to intellectual property upon termination of the joint ventures are considered.