The Making of Modern Intellectual Property Law

This book explores the shape that intellectual property law took over the course of the nineteenth century.

Brad Sherman (Author), Lionel Bently (Author)

9780521563635, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 8 July 1999

264 pages
23.7 x 16 x 2.2 cm, 0.524 kg

'This is a very readable and thought provoking book which should be of interest to anyone concerned with the philosophical basis of intellectual property law and the reform of that law to accommodate the demands of twenty-first entry technology. The authors certainly make their point that to know where we are going, we need to know where we began.' Media & Arts Law Review

One of the common themes in recent public debate has been the law's inability to accommodate the new ways of creating, distributing and replicating intellectual products. In this book the authors argue that in order to understand many of the problems currently confronting the law, it is necessary to understand its past. This is its first detailed historical account. In this book the authors explore two related themes. First, they explain why intellectual property law came to take its now familiar shape with sub-categories of patents, copyright, designs and trade marks. Secondly, the authors set out to explain how it is that the law grants property status to intangibles. In doing so they explore the rise and fall of creativity as an organising concept in intellectual property law, the mimetic nature of intellectual property law and the important role that the registration process plays in shaping intangible property.

Part I. Towards a Property in Intangibles: 1. Property in mental labour
2. The mentality of intangible property
Part II. The Emergence of a Modern Intellectual Property Law: 3. Designing the law
4. Managing the legal boundaries
Part III. Towards an Intellectual Property Law: 5. Crystallization of the categories
6. Completing the framework
7. Explanations for the shape of intellectual property law
Part IV. Transformations in the Intellectual Property Law: 8. Changes in the framework
9. From creation to object
10. Closure and its consequences
11. Remembering and forgetting
Bibliography.

Subject Areas: Intellectual property law [LNR]