The Artist’s Resale Right: Global Perspectives and Vietnam’s Path to Protection under the EVFTA

The rapid advancement of emerging technologies including artificial intelligence, blockchain, biotechnology, and digital platforms has fundamentally challenged traditional intellectual property frameworks established in the pre-digital era. This comprehensive analysis examines how intellectual property doctrines have evolved to address the complex legal, ethical, and practical challenges posed by these transformative technologies. The study employs a comparative legal analysis methodology, examining patent law adaptations, copyright extensions into digital realms, trademark considerations in virtual environments, and trade secret protections in interconnected digital ecosystems across multiple jurisdictions including the United States, European Union, United Kingdom, Japan, and emerging economies. The research reveals that while traditional intellectual property categories remain foundational, significant doctrinal adaptations have emerged to address technological realities. Patent law has expanded to accommodate software innovations, business method patents, and biotechnological inventions, though subject to ongoing judicial refinement and legislative updates. Copyright law has undergone substantial evolution to address digital reproduction, streaming technologies, user-generated content, and artificial intelligence-created works, with courts and legislatures grappling with fair use doctrines in digital contexts. Trademark law has expanded into virtual environments, domain name disputes, and social media branding, requiring new frameworks for protection and enforcement. The analysis identifies several critical challenges including the patentability of artificial intelligence innovations, copyright protection for machine-generated content, trademark enforcement in decentralized digital environments, and trade secret protection in cloud computing architectures. Jurisdictional variations in approaching these challenges have created complex international frameworks requiring harmonization efforts through treaties, bilateral agreements, and international cooperation mechanisms. Emerging best practices include adaptive legislative frameworks that can evolve with technological advancement, enhanced international cooperation mechanisms, specialized intellectual property courts with technological expertise, and collaborative approaches between legal professionals and technology experts. The study concludes that successful intellectual property evolution requires balanced approaches that protect innovation incentives while preventing overreach that could stifle technological progress and competition. Future directions include the development of artificial intelligence-specific intellectual property frameworks, enhanced protection mechanisms for biotechnological innovations, improved international harmonization of digital intellectual property standards, and adaptive legal structures capable of responding to rapid technological change. The findings contribute to ongoing academic and policy debates regarding intellectual property modernization and provide practical insights for legal practitioners, policymakers, and technology innovators navigating this evolving landscape.

The global intellectual property system protects the interests of intellectual property owners, sometimes to the detriment of competing interests like public health or access to knowledge. Some scholars have proposed a human rights framework for intellectual property as a way to inject balance into the current system. However, the assertion that human rights will bring balance is often coupled with the assumption that corporations are, by definition, excluded from human rights-based intellectual property claims. Yet, corporations have used, and are likely to continue to use, human rights law to ground their intellectual property claims. Since multinational corporations were a major driving force behind increased global intellectual property standards, a human rights framework for intellectual property must contemplate the likelihood that corporations will attempt to co-opt a human rights model in order to bolster their intellectual property claims. Moreover, framing intellectual property interests from a human rights perspective can affect our conceptions of intellectual property and our analysis of the relationship between intellectual property rights and other interests. This Article contends that there is value in using human rights law to limit excessive intellectual property protection. However, promoting a human right to intellectual property protection could have the unfortunate effect of further entrenching rights that have already increased significantly in recent years.

Intellectual property frameworks today reflect an increasing emphasis on framing knowledge and culture within a property rights paradigm. This tendency is evident in all sides of current debates about global intellectual property frameworks. Intellectual property frameworks have historically reflected accommodation and balance between local and global influences as well as private and public interests. An ethos of propertization strains both balances. The imbalance between the local and global and public and private is exemplified in current treatment of local knowledge under global intellectual property frameworks. This article examines the tensions between local and global norms, legal and otherwise, and private and public interests in today's increasingly global intellectual property frameworks. This article also evaluates the potential pitfalls of viewing culture through a propertization lens given the shared nature of many cultural resources. The treatment of culture as property may also have broad implications for both development and capacity. As is the case in intellectual property discussions more generally, the mechanisms of cultural propertization and propertization discourse can influence behavior and even intensify assertions of rights themselves. This article proposes ways to better balance the public and private and local and global in crafting intellectual property frameworks that reflect local norms, local participation and the needs of varied local contexts.

PurposeTo increase university–industry collaboration and research commercialisation, the Australian government recently introduced the Intellectual Property (IP) Framework, a set of online standard contracts. This follows a predecessor standard contract initiative, the IP Toolkit, which has not previously been evaluated. This paper aims to examine standard contracting in the innovation sector, tracing the policymaking behind the IP Toolkit using the lens of Macneil’s relational contract theory, to assess prospects of success for the new IP Framework, and similar initiatives in other jurisdictions.Design/methodology/approachThis is a disciplined-configurative case study, drawing on qualitative secondary data analysis and applying Macneil’s relational contracting theory to guide case construction and generate hypotheses around likely success of standard contracting initiatives (stakeholder sentiment, stakeholder adoption). Within-case analysis process-traces development of the IP Toolkit, to discover what the policymakers wanted, knew and computed – and to detail observable implications Macneil’s theory predicts. Its themes are triangulated with multiple sources.FindingsThe case study, via Macneil’s theory, confirms the first hypothesis (resistant stakeholder sentiment) and partly validates the second hypothesis (low levels of adoption), demonstrating limited suitability of standard contracting in the dynamic and highly uncertain space of university–industry collaboration.Research limitations/implicationsThe study provides insights into the limited role that standard contracts can play in improving national collaborative research and development performance.Originality/valueThis is a novel theory-driven case study triangulated with previously unpublished data on the IP Toolkit’s website usage, and data from recent consultations on the new IP Framework. It has broader implications for other jurisdictions considering adoption of the standard contract model.

2020 was an eventful year for the whole world, as a public health and economic crisis raged, bringing to the fore the perennial challenge of how to craft and use Intellectual Property (IP) institutions, law, policies and practices, collectively ‘IP frameworks’ to add to efforts to achieve sustainable development, and to consider recovery paths for economies. This coincided with intensified efforts to boost intra-African trade and enhance regional integration through the Agreement on the African Continental Free Trade Area (AfCFTA), which has been ratified at the fastest rate, to date, of any African Union (AU) instrument. The US entered into negotiations for a bilateral FTA with Kenya, which, if successful, would be the first in Southern Africa and the first since the coming into force of the AfCFTA Agreement. This book engages with this challenge in its six chapters. The introductory Chapter One includes a brief overview of the AU, its member states, its institutions and legal norms to emphasise both the context and the diversity of the continent. It introduces and links STI and IP within a knowledge governance context as the analytical lens through which the book’s further discussions are framed. The international and African development agendas are also explained and distinguished from each other to foreground the following chapters. Chapter Two considers the global IP framework with an account of minimum standards in international agreements. Chapter Three turns to the African continent and provides a commentary on national and regional IP frameworks, as contrasted with the global framework. It considers plurilateral and bilateral agreements including the possibilities and significance of the US-Kenya FTA. It reprises the IP instruments of the regional IP organisations and the Regional Economic Communities. Chapter Four considers STI and sustainable development, paying specific attention to the creation of an enabling environment for STI and also to how STI policies interface with IP. Chapter Five reiterates the trade and sustainable development context of IP as the foundation to a consideration of examples of how openness is being leveraged to meet current developmental challenges through STI on the continent. It spotlights some entries at the COVID-19 Innovation Challenge held during the Africa Innovation and Investment Forum 2020 together with the continent’s commitment to Open Science. Against the background of the preceding chapters, Chapter Six discusses the continental IP institutional reform and policy rejuvenation that would come from the operationalisation of PAIPO and the conclusion of the AfCFTA IP Protocol. It concludes with some policy legislative implications for IP and STI at continental level, that ought to be borne in mind as states calibrate their IP frameworks.

In a globalized world where the free-flow of creative thinking and new ideas carries a price tag, intellectual property (IP) plays a pivotal role. To lay ground rules and standardize intellectual property rights, members of the global community have devised international bodies like the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) and agreements, such as the Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS), to protect and monopolize these ideas in the form of intellectual property laws. However, countries like China, for the longest time, have deviated from a normative path to a self-serving ideal, and have counterfeited commodities while lagging in ensuring stringent intellectual property laws. Known as the imitator or copycat for the longest time, China has slowly developed itself into an innovator in multiple fields utilizing its dual approach to intellectual property. The need to slowly build trust and reputation among foreign investors as Foreign Direct Investment (FDI), a major chunk of China’s economy is dependent upon it. Thus to achieve this idiosyncratic aim, the normative approach towards the Intellectual Property Litigation System is appropriated by China. Through this mechanism, China has been able to portray a more welcoming stance to the western world in search of new investment opportunities. Meanwhile, the true nature of China's renewing IP policy stems from a self-centric and protectionist place. Understanding China from a single point-of-view would deem weak, as they have crafted a very sound portrayal accepting a standardized intellectual property framework. The article identifies both normative and idiosyncratic approaches by China in the development of their Intellectual Property Framework.

This paper examines the nature of land or territory as a linking concern in the discussion of intellectual property, traditional knowledge and the digital environment. Fundamentally, intellectual property models are circumscribed by the legal, economic and philosophical western traditions of land and land ownership and the translation of traditional knowledge within intellectual property frameworks imposes a similarly competitive, rivalrous and crowdable imperative upon that subject matter. In mapping traditional knowledge through intellectual property, traditional relationships to land (through the rendering of the knowledge embedded in that land) are similarly translated into competitive western systems, and indeed traditional and indigenous communities have been subjected to the same rationalisation, whereby authenticity is realised and proven externally through attachment to the land in what often derives from a colonial construction of Indigenous and traditional interests. This construction is vested in the continuity of connection to place and geographic community which ultimately betrays a self-conscious western construction of cultural resources and knowledge. That is, such knowledge and the relationship to that knowledge is understood only within the context of the institution of western legal paradigms and the legitimated justice of individual property interests. Notably, when it comes to the digital environment, industries based upon intellectual property struggle to chart and define territory by transforming knowledge into “land” as it were. Much has been said about the relationship between intellectual property and personal property, but what is of particular interest to this paper is the way in which an idea is reterritorialised by intellectual property models so that land ownership (at least in a conceptual sense) becomes intriguingly relevant. In examining the role or interference of intellectual property in traditional knowledge protection and indeed interpretation, this paper examines the former not through the expression of ideas as chattels but rather through the way in which ideas and information relate to territories; that is, the relationship between intellectual property frameworks and, not goods (as personal property), but land (as real property).

Intellectual property treatment of traditional or local knowledge is a major issue of contention today, particularly since the implementation of the TRIPs Agreement, which establishes minimum levels of intellectual property protection for members of the World Trade Organization. Discourse surrounding local knowledge is highly charged with accusations of piracy from Western countries countered with allegations of biopiracy from Third World countries. Flowing beneath the surface of this dialogue are multiple levels of historical experience. Intellectual property frameworks were formed in the nineteenth century during a period when evolutionary views of the development of human societies were paramount. Local knowledge was subject to devolutionary assumptions that meant that an inverse relationship was believed to exist between degree of civilization and amount of local knowledge such as folklore. As a result, local knowledge was generally not protected within national or multilateral intellectual property frameworks. This lack of protection has significant implications today in a world where such frameworks are being applied on an increasingly global basis.

The appropriation of local knowledge within the framework of existing global intellectual property rules is a major issue of contention today. The discourse surrounding this issue is highly charged with accusations of piracy from developed countries countered with allegations of biopiracy from developing countries. Flowing beneath the surface of this dialogue are multiple levels of historical experience. The time of formation of intellectual property frameworks in the nineteenth century was a period when evolutionary views of the development of human societies were paramount. Local knowledge (folklore) and societies seen as possessing such knowledge were seen as retrograde survivals of a stage through which civilized societies had already passed and left far behind. Consequently, local knowledge was subject to devolutionary assumptions that meant that an inverse relationship was believed to exist between degree of civilization and amount of local knowledge such as folklore. Local knowledge was thus seen as something that the civilized did not have. As a result, local knowledge relevant to developing countries, such as folklore, was never protected within developed country national intellectual property systems or multilateral intellectual property frameworks based upon such national systems. Professor Arewa examines the implications of this historical context for current day protection of local knowledge, suggesting that intellectual property categories, rather than being natural, fixed and determinate, are contextually determined ways of protecting creations and inventions deemed to have value. As such, the greatest impediments to protecting local knowledge is seeing the value inherent in local knowledge and designing a protection framework accordingly. In constructing a framework for protection, local knowledge innovation zones, modeled after the successful United States nineteenth century intellectual property development strategy, may serve an important role in both fostering the commercial development of local knowledge while contributing to the development of technological capacity in local communities.

Today it is widely recognized that a uniform global intellectual property (IP) system requiring a high level of protection is inherently unjust and affects countries differently depending upon their level of technological and economic development. This article analyzes the functioning of the current international treaty framework having intellectual property connections — the TRIPS (Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) Agreement, the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Convention on Biological Diversity, bilateral trade and investment agreement and UNESCO Convention on the Protection and Promotion of the Diversity of Cultural Expressions — from the perspective of how it could promote a more socially and economically just international intellectual property framework. The article also brings forth some new initiatives which have been proposed to address some of the most critical issues related to the current system: providing an alternative to a patent-driven inventive system for medical research and development and a treaty proposal for access to knowledge and technology. The article points out that the problems faced by developing countries with regard to, for example, access to medicines, can be similar to those faced by those developed countries that are net importers of patented medicines. The main message of this article is that it is no longer possible to maintain a unitary IP system at the international level without grave economic and social losses to, in particular, developing countries. What is needed is a more fragmentary IP protection framework making it possible for each country to adapt it to its national level of economic, technological and social development.

This is a revision and update of "Intellectual Property Provisions in Regional Trade Agreements" by Valdés and Runyowa (2012). This paper adjusts the methodology applied to assess the intellectual property (IP) provisions contained in regional trade agreements (RTAs) and the aggregation of such provisions into groups; it also updates the RTAs surveyed, from 194 in November 2010 to 245 in February 2014. New information contained in this revision relates to three IP-related investment and non-violation provisions in RTAs. The methodological revisions and new information result in changes to the assessment of the IP content of certain RTAs while the update reveals a growing and increasingly complex network of RTAs with IP content. This revision also provides new insights into possible improvements to the methodological toolkit for analysing IP in RTAs. The paper assembles detailed information about the IP provisions contained in active RTAs notified to the WTO. The goal was to expand beyond the more commonly studied RTAs, to review the full array of agreements notified to the WTO and thus to enable consideration of the implications of this diverse range of norm-setting activity for the multilateral system. Mapping of the IP content in RTAs involving parties from all regions and levels of development is necessary to better understand crosscutting trends in RTAs, and how all the parts of the international IP framework influence each other. The methodology followed involved surveying each RTA in the sample to determine whether it made reference to any of 32 different IP-related provisions. Two of the three IP-related provisions new to this revision and update are investment-related IP provisions, while the other concerns dispute settlement for non-violation claims. The relevant provisions are discussed in detail and summary statistics used to identify patterns over time and by continent, level of economic development and selected traders. The number of IP provisions in each RTA is then used to classify agreements according to their level of IP content. The first significant identified trend is the acceleration in the conclusion of RTAs with IP provisions after the creation of the WTO and the entry into force of the WTO TRIPS Agreement. A significant proportion of those RTAs contain some type of IP provision, but the number and type of those provisions vary widely across agreements. A majority of the RTAs surveyed include general IP provisions, while a smaller proportion contains explicit provisions on specific fields of IP law, such as geographical indications, patents, trademarks and copyright. The inclusion of even more detailed provisions elaborating on specific areas of IP law is less common. As a result, the actual IP content of RTAs differs greatly across the sample, with slightly less than half of these agreements found to havesubstantive IP standards that can be classified as moderate or high. The RTAs containing a high level of IP provisions are characterized by a hub-and-spoke architecture in which the wording and structure of IP provisions converged around the RTAs of specific countries or blocs. The largest systems are grouped around the EFTA, the European Union and the United States. The hub-and-spoke architecture seems to have encouraged the convergence of domestic IP regimes among the respective RTA signatories. The mechanics of this potentially crucial process and its economic implications require further investigation.

In an increasingly interconnected world, the protection of intellectual property rights is a critical factor that drives innovation, technological development, and knowledge transfer. This study aims to explore the relationship between global intellectual property protection and economic growth, focusing on how intellectual property frameworks, governed by international law, influence economic performance across different countries. Study obtained data by employing the quantitative design using the Econometric Model. The data was collected from the World Intellectual Property Organization data source from the period of 2018 to 2023. The gathered data was analyzed using panel data regression models in SPSS software. The findings of the study analysis reveal that intellectual property protection encourages investment in research and development, promotes market competition, and develops economic outputs in the countries. The result of the study investigation highlights that the countries that implement strong intellectual property protection laws exhibit the highest economic growth. The novelty of the study is in the comprehensive examination of the impact of stronger intellectual property protection in the competitive global economy by considering gross domestic products, foreign direct investment, and intellectual property protection-related agreements. The study contributes to optimizing global IP governance to foster sustainable economic growth and ensure equitable access to knowledge and technology for all nations.

This paper assembles detailed information about the intellectual property (IP) provisions contained in 194 active regional trade agreements (RTAs) that had been notified to the WTO by November 2010. IP provisions in RTAs have been the subject of much study and commentary. However, much of this work has focused on a relatively limited number of RTAs, with a concentration on parties with narrow geographical and economic profiles. The goal of the current study was to expand beyond the more commonly studied RTAs, to make an initial review of the full array of RTAs notified to the WTO, and in that way to lay the groundwork for a more comprehensive overview that would enable consideration of the broader system implications of this more diverse range of norm-setting activity. This was tackled by conducting a comprehensive mapping of the IP content in a larger number of RTAs involving parties from all regions and across different levels of development. This broad approach is necessary to better understand cross-cutting trends in RTAs, and how all the parts of the international IP framework influence each other. The methodology followed involved surveying each RTA in the sample to determine whether it made reference to any of 30 different IP-related provisions. The relevant provisions are discussed in detail and summary statistics used to identify patterns over time and by continent, level of economic development, and selected traders. The number of IP provisions in each RTA is then used to classify agreements according to their level of IP content. The first significant identified trend is the acceleration in the conclusion of RTAs with IP provisions after the creation of the WTO and the entry into force of the WTO TRIPS Agreement. A significant proportion of those RTAs contain some type of IP provision, but the number and type of those provisions vary widely across agreements. More than two-thirds of the RTAs surveyed include provisions on border measures or statements of general commitment to IP protection or cooperation. A smaller proportion contains explicit provisions on specific fields of IP law, such as geographical indications, patents, trademarks and copyright. The inclusion of even more detailed provisions elaborating on specific areas of IP law is less common. As a result, the actual IP content of RTAs differs greatly across the sample, with about 40% of these agreements found to have negligible substantive IP standards. A significant number of RTAs containing more detailed IP provisions are characterized by a hub-and-spoke architecture in which the wording and structure of IP provisions converged around the RTAs of specific countries or blocs. The largest systems are grouped around the EFTA, the European Union and the United States with countries like Chile, Japan and Mexico constituting other hubs. The hub-and-spoke architecture seems to have encouraged the convergence of domestic IP regimes among the respective RTA signatories. The mechanics of this potentially crucial process and its economic implications require further investigation. The analytical methodology followed in this paper also needs additional development to take better advantage of the information gathered together in the course of this study and other data.

This paper assembles detailed information about the intellectual property (IP) provisions contained in 194 active regional trade agreements (RTAs) that had been notified to the WTO by November 2010. IP provisions in RTAs have been the subject of much study and commentary. However, much of this work has focused on a relatively limited number of RTAs, with a concentration on parties with narrow geographical and economic profiles. The goal of the current study was to expand beyond the more commonly studied RTAs, to make an initial review of the full array of RTAs notified to the WTO, and in that way to lay the groundwork for a more comprehensive overview that would enable consideration of the broader system implications of this more diverse range of norm-setting activity. This was tackled by conducting a comprehensive mapping of the IP content in a larger number of RTAs involving parties from all regions and across different levels of development. This broad approach is necessary to better understand cross-cutting trends in RTAs, and how all the parts of the international IP framework influence each other. The methodology followed involved surveying each RTA in the sample to determine whether it made reference to any of 30 different IP-related provisions. The relevant provisions are discussed in detail and summary statistics used to identify patterns over time and by continent, level of economic development, and selected traders. The number of IP provisions in each RTA is then used to classify agreements according to their level of IP content. The first significant identified trend is the acceleration in the conclusion of RTAs with IP provisions after the creation of the WTO and the entry into force of the WTO TRIPS Agreement. A significant proportion of those RTAs contain some type of IP provision, but the number and type of those provisions vary widely across agreements. More than two-thirds of the RTAs surveyed include provisions on border measures or statements of general commitment to IP protection or cooperation. A smaller proportion contains explicit provisions on specific fields of IP law, such as geographical indications, patents, trademarks and copyright. The inclusion of even more detailed provisions elaborating on specific areas of IP law is less common. As a result, the actual IP content of RTAs differs greatly across the sample, with about 40% of these agreements found to have negligible substantive IP standards. A significant number of RTAs containing more detailed IP provisions are characterized by a hub-andspoke architecture in which the wording and structure of IP provisions converged around the RTAs of specific countries or blocs. The largest systems are grouped around the EFTA, the European Union and the United States with countries like Chile, Japan and Mexico constituting other hubs. The huband- spoke architecture seems to have encouraged the convergence of domestic IP regimes among the respective RTA signatories. The mechanics of this potentially crucial process and its economic implications require further investigation. The analytical methodology followed in this paper also needs additional development to take better advantage of the information gathered together in the course of this study and other data.

The ownership/custodianship of extracted ancient indigenous deoxyribonucleic acid (DNA) from ancient indigenous human remains has received little critical legal examination. This article argues that an intellectual property framework would become the likely, however unsuitable, legal framework for the exploitation of ancient indigenous DNA through the vehicle of patents. As yet this is a hypothetical discussion as this new indigenous resource remains unexploited. The dilemma raised for indigenous peoples is this: how can they best control and protect their ancestors DNA extracted from human remains, especially as recently commodified objects. Part 1 highlights the differences between perceptions about property from an indigenous perspective and a ‘Western’ legal perspective. Part 2 examines the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and ownership of ancient indigenous DNA. Part 3 examines the work of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Traditional Knowledge, Genetic Resources and Folklore (ICG) and the possibility of an indigenised intellectual property framework and/or sui generis protection.