Intellectual Property: The Promise and Risk of Human Rights

The rendezvous between intellectual property rights and human rights has awakened slumbering legal spirits. Miscellaneous legal phenomena are now nestled in the intersection between intellectual property rights and human rights. However, the interplay between human rights and intellectual property rights is bizarrely characterized by amity and hostility. Naturally, therefore, situating indigenous intellectual property at the intersection of intellectual property and human rights becomes a daunting task. However, the dilemma is often overstated especially from the point of view of conventional intellectual property rights. At the outset of this Article, I shall be exploring the history and the development of the relationship between human rights and intellectual property rights. In the followng section, I shall be examining the extent to which intellectual property rights are entrenched in the international human rights instruments. The last section shall be devoted to exploring the phenomenon of locating indigenous peoples' rights at the interface between intellectual property rights and human rights and reflecting on the ensuing issues—an aspect which has seldom been considered in the existing literature.

The investment activity is diverse and can be carried out with the use of intellectual property rights in accordance with the current international and Russian investment law. The article aims to identify the specifics of the application of intellectual property rights as investments and the implementation of intellectual investments, i.e. investments endowed into intellectual property rights. The objectives of the study are to consider the categories of an investment and object of investment activity, intellectual property, exclusive and other intellectual rights, as well as to analyze and determine the features of legal regulation of the activity in question at the international and national levels in the Russian Federation. Based on the results of the systematic analysis with the use of formal legal, comparative and other research methods, it is concluded that investments as a property in a broad sense may include both exclusive and other non-personal intellectual property rights to the results of intellectual activity and equated means of individualization of goods, works, services and enterprises. At the same time, they exclude intellectual property itself as a set of various types of intangible products, moral and other personal non-proprietary intellectual rights by virtue of their inalienable and non-transferable character. It is argued to be the same with respect to the object of investment activity, i.e. the property which the investment is endowed in and is capable to bring income to the investor in the future. Investments into such intellectual property rights can be called as intellectual investments.The legal regulation of investment activity with the use of intellectual property rights has a dual character (in the sense that it is carried out by different investment legislative acts with the similar subject of their regulation) and depends on the type of a particular object used. If intellectual property rights are invested in fixed capital, then they are to be recognized as capital investments and are governed by the Federal Law of February 25,1999 No. 39-FZ “On Investment Activity in the Russian Federation Carried out in the Form of Capital Investments”. If intellectual property rights are used as the object of investment activity, i.e. where investments are endowed in, such intellectual investments are subject to the regulation by the Law of the RSFSR of June 26, 1991 No. 1488-1 “On Investment Activity in the RSFSR”.

Intellectual Property Rights and Standard-Setting Organizations

Author(s): Lemley, Mark A. | Abstract: The role of institutions in mediating the use of intellectual property rights has long been neglected in debates over the economics of intellectual property. In a path-breaking work, Rob Merges studied what he calls collective rights organizations, industry groups that collect intellectual property rights from owners and license them as a package. Merges finds that these organizations ease some of the tensions created by strong intellectual property rights by allowing industries to bargain from a property rule into a liability rule. Collective rights organizations thus play a valuable role in facilitating transactions in intellectual property rights.There is another sort of organization that mediates between intellectual property owners and users, however. Standard-setting organizations (SSOs) regularly encounter situations in which one or more companies claim to own proprietary rights that cover a proposed industry standard. The industry cannot adopt the standard without the permission of the intellectual property owner (or owners).How SSOs respond to those who assert intellectual property rights is critically important. Whether or not private companies retain intellectual property rights in group standards will determine whether a standard is open or closed. It will determine who can sell compliant products, and it may well influence whether the standard adopted in the market is one chosen by a group or one offered by a single company. SSO rules governing intellectual property rights will also affect how standards change as technology improves.Given the importance of SSO rules governing intellectual property rights, there has been surprisingly little treatment of SSO intellectual property rules in the legal literature. My aim in this article is to fill that void. To do so, I have studied the intellectual property policies of dozens of SSOs, primarily but not exclusively in the computer networking and telecommunications industries. This is no accident; interface standards are much more prevalent in those industries than in other fields. In Part I, I provide some background on SSOs themselves, and discuss the value of group standard setting in network markets. In Part II, I discuss my empirical research, which demonstrates a remarkable diversity among SSOs even within a given industry in how they treat intellectual property. In Part III, I analyze a host of unresolved contract and intellectual property law issues relating to the applicability and enforcement of such intellectual property policies. In Part IV, I consider the constraints the antitrust laws place on SSOs in general, and on their adoption of intellectual property policies in particular. Part V offers a theory of SSO intellectual property rules as a sort of messy private ordering, allowing companies to bargain in the shadow of patent law in those industries in which it is most important that they do so. Finally, in Part VI I offer ideas for how the law can improve the efficiency of this private ordering process.In the end, I hope to convince the reader of four things. First, SSO rules governing intellectual property fundamentally change the way in which we must approach the study of intellectual property. It is not enough to consider IP rights in a vacuum; we must consider them as they are actually used in practice. And that means considering how SSO rules affect IP incentives in different industries. Second, there is a remarkable diversity among SSOs in how they treat IP rights. This diversity is largely accidental, and does not reflect conscious competition between different policies. Third, the law is not well designed to take account of the modern role of SSOs. Antitrust rules may unduly restrict SSOs even when those organizations are serving procompetitive ends. And enforcement of SSO IP rules presents a number of important but unresolved problems of contract and intellectual property law, issues that will need to be resolved if SSO IP rules are to fulfill their promise of solving patent holdup problems.My fourth conclusion is an optimistic one. SSOs are a species of private ordering that may help solve one of the fundamental dilemmas of intellectual property law: the fact that intellectual property rights seem to promote innovation in some industries but harm innovation in others. SSOs may serve to ameliorate the problems of overlapping intellectual property rights in those industries in which IP is most problematic for innovation, particularly in the semiconductor, software, and telecommunications fields. The best thing the government can do is to enforce these private ordering agreements and avoid unduly restricting SSOs by overzealous antitrust scrutiny.

Human rights' limitations in patent law

The article is devoted to the content of the concepts «intellectual property» and «right of intellectual property» and to the issue of the possibility of using them as equivalent concepts. The author considersthe features of a broad understanding of the concept of intellectual property, in which it is revealed as a complex set of social relations arising at all levels of public life. With this approach intellectual relations are only one of the varieties of intellectual property relations, the totality of which is subject to legal regulation only in part.Taking into account the above, the difference between the meanings of the concepts «intellectual property» (in the sense of this concept as a social relation) and «intellectual property right» is reflected in the content of the structural elements of the relations that denote these concepts: 1) Subjects of intellectual property rights are determinedon the basis of compliance with certain legal requirements regarding legal personality, as well as the acquisition of subjective legal rights and obligations, which are provided to them by legal norms (by using their legal personality); the subjects of intellectual property become participants of social relations of different levels, including those, which are outside of the legal regulation. Such interactions may be related to realization of creative abilities of a person, mental activity, etc; 2) In the centre of understanding of the concept «object of intellectual property rights» is the content of intellectual property rights as a totality of personal non-property and property rights.The defining aspect of legal protection is the right to the created object of intellectual property rights. At the same time the object of intellectual property is a value in sociophilosophical sense that satisfies the social, cultural, mental and other needs and interests of people. In this sense the object by its nature is a good for man; 3) Social connections between the subjects of intellectual relations are revealed through corresponding rights and obligations of the participants of these relations; in the relations of intellectual property social relations manifest themselves as interaction between people in different spheres of social life, based on the corresponding social statusesand roles, in which individuals carry out creative activity, realize their mental and cultural needs, etc. Understanding the concept «intellectual property» as identical with the concept «intellectual property right» is based on a normative approach. This approach shows that the concept of «intellectual property» and «intellectual property right» are used in the legislation in the same sense and can denote both objects of intellectual property right and rights about such objects.

This chapter seeks to distinguish between intellectual property rights the existing legal mechanisms for intellectual property protection – and the right to intellectual property. The right to intellectual property is a human right. Intellectual property rights, instrumental in nature and codified in legal frameworks around the world, are not. Rather, intellectual property rights as they exist are both over- and under-inclusive in their protection of the right to intellectual property. However, the right to intellectual property exists for everyone, and a human rights perspective on IP should change the framework by which we evaluate and construct the legal system, expose the flaws of a system designed to primarily protect corporate interests, and present possibilities for a more inclusive approach.The analysis begins in Part l with a discussion of the human right to the moral and material interests of creators, as that right has been embodied in an international human rights framework over time. In Part 2, I discuss intellectual property rights - their importance and relevance to the human rights detailed in Article l5(1)(c) of the International Covenant on Economic, Social, and Cultural Rights. Creations of the mind are not only fundamental to personhood and community, but they serve as a primary economic vehicle on the global stage and have the potential to facilitate the ability of creators to access an adequate standard of living in remote areas and disadvantaged communities. In Part 3, I discuss General Comment 17 of the CESCR, which gives guidance and effect to the human rights provisions found in Article 15(1)(c). I conclude that for the rights in Article 15(l)(c) to be realized, they must be perceived as a fundamental aspect of intellectual property law and policy. Protection and respect for the moral and material interests of creators, the right to intellectual property, is a human right; and as such, human rights discourse must inform intellectual property policy. This conclusion has implications both for the intellectual property law community and the human rights community: to forget that human creators are at the centre of scientific and artistic innovation works to the detriment of effective IP policy; to avoid the legal mechanism by which the rights of creators are protected works to the detriment of human rights.

The article is devoted to the study of the general provisions of intellectual property law in Ukraine. The article notes that the importance of protecting property rights in the intellectual sphere has been growing rapidly in recent decades. A theoretical and practical understanding of the nature of intellectual property rights was carried out based on the analysis of current legislation and available scientific, methodical and journalistic materials. The list of laws that regulate activities in the field of intellectual property, both at the national and international level, is given. It is interesting to note that in Ukraine there are quite a lot of special legislative acts regulating the above activities. Attention is focused on the adaptation of Ukrainian legislation to the legal system of the European Union. International legal acts regulating the protection of intellectual property rights are given. Scientific and regulatory approaches to defining the concept of intellectual property rights are considered. It is established that this concept can be considered in two ways: objective and subjective. In an objective sense, in the legal literature, intellectual property law is considered as a system of legal norms that regulates homogeneous social relations in the field of intellectual property. In a subjective sense, the right of intellectual property is considered as personal property and non-property rights of natural persons, which according to the current legislation belong to the authors for the results of intellectual activity. Special attention is paid to the interpretation of the concepts of property and non-property intellectual property rights. Property intellectual property is the author's rights to the results obtained from his creative activity, similar to the property rights of those who create material objects with their labor (devices, devices, mechanisms, new information technologies, etc.). Non-property intellectual property rights are a set of moral, mental, rational, intellectual and other human rights, which by their nature cannot be alienated from the owner. A comparative analysis was made between intellectual property law and property law in general, and their relationship was also analyzed.

The objective of this chapter is to critically re-examine the 1996 decision of the Constitutional Court of South Africa with regard to the constitutional status of intellectual property rights in South Africa in the light of the current debates on the relationship between intellectual property and human rights in South Africa. The chapter equally questions the view of those who contend that intellectual property rights fall within the scope of the constitutional protection of the right to property in South Africa. This will be done by critically assessing some of the cases in which South African courts have dealt with the interface and tensions between intellectual property rights and other human rights. Furthermore, the chapter contends that, even if one takes the view that intellectual property rights fall within the scope of the constitutional protection of the right to property, this should not constitute an impediment to the implementation of measures aimed at protecting the public health, such as measures relating to the plain packaging of tobacco products in South Africa.

Trips and Developing Countries Introduction

Keywords: results of creative activity, intellectual property law, creative freedom,subjective and objective aspects of intellectual property law, subjective and objectiveaspects of creative freedom At the present stage of intellectual property science developmentresearchers continue discussions on the nature of intellectual property law and itscomponents. In the intellectual property law history, the legal doctrine and legislationadmit a certain connection between creators and their results of intellectualcreative activity as well as the relations that arise as a result of their creation. Consideringthe basic approaches to intellectual property rights we cannot ignore its obviouscomponent attribute of ideal nature, so the system of intellectual propertyrights protection includes not only property or exclusive intellectual property rights, but also personal non-property rights. Intellectual property law in the objectiveacceptation is a system of rights. In the subjective acceptation it always combinestwo components: non-material and material. Legislative rights to the object ofintellectual property rights are a legal confirmation of the existing and inviolableconnection between the creator and their object of intellectual property rights. Intellectualproperty law combines personal, intangible and property interests of thecreator. It is aimed to combine all these interests with the interests of other people.The law determines the procedure for using and receiving remuneration as a resultof intellectual property rights realization by the creator or their legal successors.The subject of intellectual property rights is a person who owns personal non-propertyand (or) exclusive property rights of intellectual property. The subjective aspectof intellectual property rights reflects the interests that the creator seeks tosatisfy by creating an object of intellectual property rights. There are three main interestsof the creator which they can satisfy by exercising intellectual propertyrights: recognition interest, financial reward interest and interest in their intellectualproperty rights protection. The object of intellectual property rights is a resultof intellectual and creative work of the subject who always owns personal intangibleintellectual property rights on the basis of natural law and legislation and this isproceeding from the very beginning of the process and as a result of creation of intellectualproperty rights object. It is worth mentioning that according to the lawthe personal intangible intellectual property rights remain in force without limit oftime and cannot be alienated (transferred) except it is expressed by law.

Decentralizing the lawmaking function: Private lawmaking markets and intellectual property rights in law

Decentralizing the Lawmaking Function: Private Lawmaking Markets and Intellectual Property Rights in Law

The world community recognizes that intellectual property and intellectual rights are one of the foundations of the modern business world. The issues of choosing ways to protect intellectual property rights are the subject of constant discussions. The authors analyze the problem in two aspects: from the point of view of state and international policy and from the point of view of the possibility of protecting their intellectual rights by participants in civil turnover. The purpose of the study is to study the mechanism of intellectual property rights protection, as well as to study the problems of compensation for moral damage and self-defense in the field of intellectual property. When preparing the article, general scientific logical methods were used, as well as a private formal legal method. The authors note that the conflict between the interests of the copyright holder of exclusive rights, on the one hand, and the general rights of participation and access, on the other, is a characteristic feature of modern society and culture, therefore intellectual property and intellectual rights are of interest not only as a legal institution, but also as a cultural model and socio-economic mechanism. With the development of digital technologies, the very principle of exclusivity of intellectual rights is increasingly being questioned both in theory and in practice, which naturally leads to a revision of existing ideas about the protection of these rights.

The Colour of Copyright