INTERNATIONAL / INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY / BASIC PRINCIPLES

European Intellectual Property Review, Vol 23 issue 1, January 2001

Does Intellectual Property Need a New set of Wheels?

Alison Brimelow

In this article, by the Chief Executive of the United Kingdom Patent Office, two fundamental questions are discussed: first, whether our system, as it has evolved and is still evolving, can cope with the demands of accelerating innovation and technological change; and, secondly, whether the traditional balance of rights as exemplified in the justification of patents - that is, monopoly and disclosure, - is still relevant or indeed good enough for the expectations of society in the electronic age. The author comments on the fact that, "new technologies or no, there are still plenty of people wanting patents and trade marks"; that many applications, by contrast with the situation in the past, are for ephemeral purposes; that the rise in trade mark applications may largely reflect a reaction to the proliferation of domain names; and that many patent applications are for software and even business methods. "The cry has therefore gone up that we need shorter rights or different ones". It does not help the credibility of the intellectual property system, in the author’s view, that patents take so long to grant; that large companies often seek to assert their rights in relation to apparently harmless activities by small traders; that, in an age of globalisation, the patent search has to be repeated wherever the patent is applied for; and, especially for small inventors, patent litigation is (in the words of a disillusioned inventor) "sapping creative energy". The author commends the WIPO system of dispute resolution, particularly for the settlement of conflicts between trade marks and domain names; but she is concerned by the spread of the perception that intellectual property right owners are using their rights to disadvantage consumers. Public awareness of intellectual property must be encouraged, not least in the classroom. This is essential for the process of what the author calls "democratising intellectual property policy-making" and ensuring a balance of rights. It is all too easy, for example, for policy-makers to give right owners considerable power to control the dissemination of digital content and inadvertently prevent people from time-shifting their television programs. In conclusion, the author notes that "the coincidence of rapid technological change and in particular the Internet revolution, together with the pendulum swing in terms of the perceived inherent virtue of intellectual property rights" calls for a timely review of the intrinsic value and relevance of the whole system.[20041]