Upcoming NZCIEL conference
Intellectual Property and Alternative Regimes: Is there life outside of the Big Three?
Featuring Keynote address: Rochelle C. Dreyfuss, Pauline Newman Professor of Law, Co-Director, Engelberg Centre on Innovation Law and Policy, New York University School of Law
When one speaks of intellectual property, one usually speaks of copyrights, patents, and trade marks, the Big Three of Intellectual Property. Increasingly, however, problems posed by the forced disclosure in patent applications, the cost of obtaining international patent protection, the over enforcement of software patents by “non-practicing entities” (trolls), the dubious validity of many patents on software and online business models, and the inefficiency of copyright-led efforts to modify online behaviour have led to calls to repeal laws that do not work or replace them with other legal solutions. The useful but very limited role of trade marks (such as preventing domain names that too closely resemble protected marks) does not work well for new online uses, including the sale of brand names as AdWords.
Is there life for intellectual property online outside of the Big Three? Should researchers, online businesses and internet users focus more resources on exploring other solutions? The common denominator of intellectual-property rights outside of the big three are that they often are sui generis regimes or they stem from common law doctrines and have limited (or even no) recognition in international treaties. Does that matter? Do we need new instruments?
Panels will include discussion of the following topics:
- Trade secrets
- Publicity rights and the right to one’s image
- Unjust enrichment and related doctrines
- Sui generis rights (e.g databases, traditional knowledge protection, plant variety rights)
- Are new modes of enforcement a new form of intellectual property?
17 and 18 November 2014, save the date!
Registration will open in July, to register your interest please email anna.burnett@vuw.ac.nzThe NZ Centre of International Economic Law is pleased to acknowledge Internet NZ’s support of this conference.