Working Within the Boundaries of Intellectual Property: Innovation Policy for the Knowledge Society

Wildy's Book of the Month - March 2010

This book is the long-awaited companion volume to the highly acclaimed Expanding the Boundaries of Intellectual Property, published by OUP in 2001. That book argued for strong private rights whilst at the same time calling for caution in the expansionary trend.

In the period since the first volume, intellectual property protection has grown ever stronger, and this new book focuses on finding ways to cope with the fragmentation of rights and the complex framework this expansion of rights has created.

At the core of the book are considerations of such initiatives as patent clearing models, standard setting organizations, licensing arrangements and informal work-arounds. It also examines the measures that seek to protect the public domain, including strategic licensing, collective rights organizations, and non-profit ventures such as creative commons and open-source publishing.

Drawing on expertise from a number of disciplines including law, economics and sociology, the book is international in approach and fuses scholarly research with legal practice. It will be of great interest to scholars in intellectual property and innovation, policy-makers, and practitioners with an interest in the future of the field.

• Contains original expert writing which focuses on the fragmentation of intellectual property protection rights and the complex framework this expansion of rights has created
• Includes the substantive empirical research that has been conducted since the first volume, Expanding the Boundaries of Intellectual Property, on how creative enterprises deal with the new terrain of legal rights
• Includes analysis of new intellectual property protection regimes including patent and database protection in the US and the EU
• Examines the areas where modifications in existing legislation may be needed to facilitate desired outcomes or to minimize clashes between private ordering and the public interest
• Expert contributor team is drawn from a variety of fields, including law, legal practice, economics, library science, and sociology