This book presents the results of a long-term comparative research project on information property which has accompanied us for 20 years (2001–2021). The project covers 16 European jurisdictions, and has brought us together with many collaborators with whom we are united in the spirit of a multinational research project, unfunded by third-stream money, powered exclusively by intrinsic scientific motivations.

The central research question is: How do boundaries to information property evolve? In the light of comparatively few legislative interventions in intellectual property law (IP), the following questions arise: Are boundaries set elsewhere? Do industrial practices or legal intervention in other fields of the law set boundaries? The methodology of the project (‘the Trento method’) and the research results are laid down in Part I. Our academic learnings have taken shape as four individual chapters, which form Part II of the book. They focus on regulatory theory, conflict configuration in IP law, the European Public Domain, and morality in IP Law.

Part III documents the empirical foundation of the project (cases and national reports). When, in individual cases, no answer is given by the country reporter(s), the lacuna is indicated.

We are grateful to numerous supporters. All the contributors of country reports are listed below. We have indicated the contributors’ affiliation at the time the respective country report was submitted. We are thankful to each one of them. Updates were invited, but only the editors used the option. Beyond our reporters, without the loyal research assistants who encouraged us while working on the project over the years, and who contributed valuable insights, the project would not have come to an end. In this respect, Dr Anja Balitzki deserves special gratitude. She prepared valuable texts which helped two of the editors to write their comparative remarks while she was employed at the University of Oldenburg (2010–2013). We are indebted to Jakob Rustige who supported us in 2018–2019 to master the technical side of the manuscript while we worked on revisions simultaneously; along the way, he made many corrections to the texts.