Скачать или смотреть Phillip Taylor MBE book review. Intellectual Property and General Legal Principles

BOOK REVIEW

INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AND GENERAL LEGAL PRINCIPLES
Is IP a Lex Specialis?

Edited by Graeme B Dinwoodie

Edward Elgar Publishing/ATRIP Intellectual Property Series
Also available electronically in the Elgaronline Law subject collection
DOI 10.4337/9781784714956

ISBN: 978 1 78471 494 9 (print)
978 1 78471 495 6 (ebook)

www.e-elgar.com
www.elgaronline.com

SOME ANSWERS TO THE QUESTION OF WHY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAWS ARE SPECIAL

An appreciation by Phillip Taylor MBE and Elizabeth Taylor of Richmond Green Chambers


Are intellectual property laws special? This is the key question posed by Graeme Dinwoodie, who, as editor of this thought-provoking book, heads what you might call a stellar cast of academic contributors, all from top universities worldwide, from Aberdeen and Exeter to Rome, Munich, Copenhagen and Tokyo, to Osgoode Hall in Canada and Washington University, St. Louis School of Law in the United States.

Professor Dinwoodie himself is Professor of Intellectual Property and Information Technology Law at Oxford and also Director of the Oxford Intellectual Property Research Centre.

So laid out here for the further enlightenment of IP lawyers and specialist academics everywhere, is a choice selection of insight and scholarship on intellectual property, which takes, generally, a deeper and more analytical look at the subject than one might expect to find in any number of other legal texts. To this end, the various contributors, in various ways, examine a range of other questions.

‘What’ for example ‘is the relationship between intellectual property and general legal principles?’ And there’s a related question: what is the scope of intellectual property law and does intellectual property law defy definition? Dinwoodie points out that even though the term ‘intellectual property is defined in the TRIPS Agreement, ‘there remains debate about the borders of the concept, let alone its essence.’

The general aim of these arguments apparently is to rescue IP from being thought of as a narrow field, requiring specialist advice only. Exploring, for example, the overlaps between IP law and , say, contract law and other areas of law, the majority of the contributors to this book have sought to analyse the role of IP within broader legal institutions, concluding that, in the editor’s words, intellectual property ‘is too significant socially and commercially to be considered only by specialists.’

As for the obvious relationship between IP and contract law, contributor Giuseppina D’Agostino of Osgoode Hall Law School, insists that copyright law is ‘inextricably bound to contract law and that ‘contract law traps the various entitlements that copyright law creates.’ Referring to this tension between the two, she asserts that identifying copyright’s status as ‘specialis’ vis-a-vis contract law’s possible designation as, ‘generalis’, is a lot less important than determining and explaining the relationship of copyright to contract law.

It is this ‘hierarchical’ relationship which most affects creative output in the cultural industries, she says, ‘especially freelance authors.’ A more integrative approach is therefore preferable, as ‘without contract law, copyright law has little meaning.’

Such lucid and concise commentary is typical of the insightful discussions on IP to be found in this book. Published by Edward Elgar, it is an important contribution to the body of scholarly literature on intellectual property and a valuable addition to the IP practitioner’s professional library. The book is also available in the Elgaronline law subject collection and as an ebook.

The publication date is cited as at 2015.

Do visit the publisher's website for their latest editions and new titles.