Intellectual property refers to creations of the human mind which when duly protected can become valuable property. Intellectual property comprises an open list of protected intangibles that is consistently growing. Some of the more traditional areas of intellectual property are copyright, trademarks, patents and rights related thereto.

Copyright is the exclusive right of creators of works to preclude others from
exploiting their created works. The traditional domain of copyright protection s in the sphere of literary or artistic orks, though recent times have seen debates over whether computer programs are copyrightable. Historians have traced copyright law as far back as the Statute of Anne of 1710 which regulated book trade. The Statute evolved into the Copyright Act 1911 which is the epitome of modern copyright law, whereby the exclusiveness of the right is considered justifiable due to the social and economic gains that such rights confer to creativity and advancement of knowledge in the society. In addition, it is also believed that the law should recognise the product of one’s labour by enabling the creator of the works to exclusively produce the works in order that they may obtain some economic returns from their creation. Generally, countries adopt the standard of grant of copyright for the duration of the life of the creator of the work and a further fifty or seventy years.

A patent is a limited monopoly which isgranted in return for the disclosure of technical information. The purpose behind the grant of a patent is to encourage inventors to disclose their inventions so that persons who are skilled in the art can use it and in return, the inventors are granted exclusive rights to control the way their inventions are exploited for a twenty-year period. Because of the monopolistic nature of a patent, a patent owner could prevent others from using the patented invention, it being immaterial whether the
use was carried out by virtue of copying or by independent creation.

Trademark law and the law of passing off essentially deal with the protection of the goodwill of a trader from unfair competition and the protection of consumers from deception and confusion in the market. The subject matter protected by trademark law is essentially confined to trademarks and well-known marks but the subject matter of the law of passing-off includes trademark, goodwill, get-ups and may also extend to cover commercial slogans which by substantive use have become taken by the public to denote a connection with the products by which the slogans are used.

Intellectual property law is fast becoming a more important aspect of everyday life…

It is interesting to note that Article 2 of the World Intellectual Property Organization Convention defines intellectual property to include the rights relating to literary, artistic and scientific works, performances of performing artists, phonograms, and broadcasts, inventions in all fields of human endeavour, scientific discoveries, industrial designs, trademarks, service marks, and commercial names and designations, protection against unfair competition, and all other rights resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields. Today, rights in intellectual property have also expanded to encompass the protection of software copyright and patents, bio-medical and bio-technology patents and business methods patent.

Intellectual property law is fast becoming a more important aspect of everyday life as its scope continues to expand. This issue of Juris hence focuses on some issues of interest in the arena of intellectual property law. Although the articles cover diverse types of intellectual property, we can discern three overarching and urgent themes. First, intellectual property law ultimately seeks to achieve the optimal balance between the interests of creators (or their employer corporations) and consumers (or the public domain). Second, technology is a double-edged sword: advances in technology can be used both to entrench and to circumvent intellectual property protection. Finally, given the dual nature of technology, our best hope for achieving the optimal balance in the sphere of intellectual property might lie in non-technological solutions such as education and re-evaluating market strategies.

Foo Meng Yeen is an LLM student and an associate editor of the Singapore Law Review. – Juris Illuminae Vol. 3 Issue 2 (November/December 2006)