Market failures, troubled access to medicine, impediments to free flow of information, copyright overextension, digital right protection, overkill and patents stifling rather than stimulating innovation are just a few of the disparaging themes around intellectual property. The main drives behind changes in IPR systems are growing discontent with the right to exclude, which is essential to most IPR systems, the diversity of IP policies between the West and the Developing countries, as well as digitalisation of information. The future of IPR will be shaped more by its users than by international IP legislative initiatives. This is the gist of an article by Severin de Wit, “Challenges in Public and Private Domain Will Shape the Future of Intellectual Property” published in the “Law of the Future” Series (2012).
This think piece explores the main drives behind a growing critical view on intellectual property and how the law can change so as to restore confidence in the workings of intellectual property systems. Something to reflect on during the New Year holiday.
Full publication details:
Sam Muller, Stavros Zouridis Morly Frishman and Laura Kistemaker (editors):
The Law of the Future and the Future of Law: Volume II
Torkel Opsahl Academic EPublisher, The Hague, 2012
ISBN 978-82-93081-80-7
503 pages
First published 31 October 2012