This chapter considers the scope of contemporary trade mark rights. In so doing, it discusses whether trade marks are a form of property right (the conceptual question).

Profitability of digital innovations depends on the ability of the innovator to prevent imitation and control a bottleneck in the ecosystem. The main drivers of value in the markets for information and communication include the perceived inherent value of the information product or service itself and the size and structure of the network. This chapter focuses on how to protect and enhance the value of information.

How do you read a patent and what subject matter is patentable? What is the purpose of a patent? Who is an inventor on the patent if work is done by many people on the project? What is the process of obtaining a patent in my country and globally? Read this chapter to see how you could lose commercialization rights to your own invention. When exactly does an invention or idea become patentable? Once you own a patent, how can you make money from it? What is the process of licensing and the key terms that should be negotiated in such a license agreement? What is the use of a copyright or a trade secret in biotech? What exactly constitutes patent infringement ? These questions and many others are addressed in this chapter on intellectual property.

Copyright’s test for infringement takes a uniform approach to aesthetics by treating all audiences and modalities of creative expression the same. We now know that this is not how aesthetic judgment works. The chapter describes how the law can be reformed to take differences in audiences and artistic media into account. The chapter also responds to potential objections to the use of neuroaesthetics in this legal context. A better understanding of how audiences perceive art, if implemented in the right manner, can help protect both economic and non-economic values embedded in copyright law in a more transparent way.

The current test for copyright infringement requires a court or jury to assess whether the parties’ works are “substantially similar” from the vantage point of the “ordinary observer.” Embedded within this test are several assumptions about audiences and art that neuroaesthetics—the study of the neural processes underlying aesthetic behavior—calls into question. To illustrate the disconnect between the law’s understanding of aesthetic appreciation and the reality of our reactions to works of art, the chapter explores a recent high-profile copyright matter involving the rock anthem “Stairway to Heaven.” Under current law, no effort is made to select jurors with the same listening or viewing tastes as the target audience for the original work—in this case, fans of classic rock. Nor can expert witnesses aid the jury’s understanding of that target audience. Instead, the assumption seems to be that we all appreciate works in the same indescribable way and one person’s reaction is as good as another. In truth, the basic biology of aesthetic reaction changes markedly depending on familiarity, experience, and even gender, contradicting copyright law’s one size-fits-all-approach.

This chapter describes how device makers try to leverage intellectual property (IP) rights to restrict repair and why those assertions are, as a general rule, inconsistent with a proper understanding of the law. IP—in the form of copyrights, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets—offers manufacturers an arsenal of weapons in the war on repair. From a practical perspective, IP law allows firms to credibly threaten to enjoin, silence, and ultimately bankrupt anyone with the audacity to repair a product without permission. That’s true despite the fact that IP claims against consumers and repair providers rest on questionable legal foundations.

It is generally assumed that a single theoretical account is sufficient to explain why we protect both registered and unregistered trade marks. Specifically, the need to protect against consumer confusion is said to explain the protection that is afforded to trade marks through both the registration system and through passing off/unfair competition law. Drawing on recent scholarship that sets out to re-examine the role of trade mark registration, this chapter argues that we need to think more seriously about embracing a bifurcated model of trade mark protection, with the two modes of protection underpinned by different justifications and perform different functions. This would allow us to have a clearer idea of how the two systems should interact and when we should prioritise the operation of one over the other.