Intellectual Property
Control over, and access to, knowledge determines how the benefits of scientific, technological, and other advancements are realized and distributed throughout our information society. How exactly does protection of intellectual property rights shape the global knowledge economy? Better understanding and then influencing the law of patents, copyrights, trademarks, secrets, and many related legal rules are among my top research priorities.
Featured Articles
Evidence-based Intellectual Property Policymaking
One might assume that the global governance of IP rights rests on a solid foundation of evidence. Think again…
Canada’s Copyright Tariff-Setting Process
My empirical research findings deliver unique understanding of Canada’s tariff-setting procedures, enabling more informed debate about copyright issues…
Featured Audio & Video
Jeremy de Beer discusses the smartphone patent wars on cbc radio
Latest Articles
The Future of Intellectual Property
We start by laying out some “laws” of the futures, including this one by the legendary Jim Dator…
Evidence-based Intellectual Property Policymaking
One might assume that the global governance of IP rights rests on a solid foundation of evidence. Think again…
All Articles
Implementing the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Development Agenda
The Development Agenda presents a real opportunity to revolutionize the international governance of intellectual property law and policy…
The Future of the World Intellectual Property Organization’s Development Agenda
Will WIPO’s “Development Agenda” be a game-changer for the global knowledge economy, or will it fail to bring about fundamental reforms? That’s the question that I convened a group of academics, diplomats, activists, and industry experts to answer at a retreat outside of Geneva in 2010. The Development Agenda for the...
Remedies for Biotechnology Patent Infringement
A pair courts decisions have a big impact on remedies available for biotechnology patent infringement. Defendants in biotech patent lawsuits seem to be better off than previously thought. The result could mean revaluing Canadian patent portfolios based on enforceability issues, and revising business and intellectual property practices accordingly. Read the...
Access to Knowledge in Africa: The Role of Copyright
This book gives the reader an understanding of the legal and practical issues posed by copyright for access to education and learning materials in Africa, and identifies the relevant lessons, best policies and best practices that would broaden and deepen this access. The emergence of the Internet and the...
Orphan Works in Canada: Copyright Licensing for Owners Who Can’t Be Found
Copyright lasts for a long time. Because there’s formal registration requirement, owners are often unlocatable. Their works become orphan works. The issue of orphan works is one of the most pressing copyright law and policy problems of the 21st century. My co-author Mario Bouchard and I were the first experts...
Implementing WIPO’s Development Agenda in North Africa and the Middle East
Mosques, Tunis, 1932, by Smithsonian American Art Museum, on Flickr. The World Intellectual Property Organization invited me to speak about my trade and development research, specifically my book Implementing the WIPO’s Development Agenda, during an outreach and capacity-building seminar in Tunis, Tunisia. It was surprising (though in hindsight, it shouldn’t...
The Copyright Board’s Legal History Making
The Copyright Board is far more than a rate-setting body; it is heavily involved in either making or implementing copyright policy. While Parliament and the courts have, and exercise, the power to determine the law, increasingly these bodies are relying on the Board to apply the law in practice....
Exhaustion of Intellectual Property
Though the scope of the doctrine of exhaustion, and the terminology used to describe it, is somewhat different in the contexts of copyrights, trade-marks, and patents, and in different jurisdictions, the concept and function are universal in intellectual property law. In Canada, the applicability of the exhaustion doctrine to copyrights,...
Intellectual Property & Traditional Knowledge: My Interview on CBC Spark
Indigenous communities from India to South Africa to Canada have seen their traditional knowledge misappropriated and commercialized. In some cases, intellectual property rights are the root of the problem. In other cases, intellectual property rights can be part of the solution.
Respect and Reality are Keys to Copyright Reform
Copyright can be a polarizing topic, caricatured with imagery of toiling creators and freeloading pirates. The latest line is that Canada’s laws are hopelessly antiquated and can’t possibly cope with new cultural or technological phenomena. This kind of talk may produce headlines and a quick batch of legal reforms, but it does nothing to constructively facilitate intelligent policymaking. That requires a more nuanced point of view.