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Traditional Knowledge & Intellectual Property: A Trips-Compatible Approach, Daniel J. Gervais Jan 2005

Traditional Knowledge & Intellectual Property: A Trips-Compatible Approach, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

Should intellectual property provide a means for strengthening the range of incentives that local communities need for conserving and developing genetic resources and traditional knowledge (TK)? If so, how and at what cost? To be able to suggest answers, a number of issues must be resolved. They are the focus of the Article. First, one must build, and then cross, a cultural bridge to explain current forms of intellectual property to holders of traditional knowledge, including definitional efforts to determine the nature and depth of the overlap(s). This achieves a dual objective: it allows intellectual property circles to understand and …


Towards A New Core International Copyright Norm: The Reverse Three-Step Test, Daniel J. Gervais Jan 2005

Towards A New Core International Copyright Norm: The Reverse Three-Step Test, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This paper argues that international copyright treaties, such as the WTO TRIPS Agreement, should no longer be developed as sets of minimum standards with a standardized exception filter, namely the three-step test, but rather include a normative standard for the copyright rights themselves. In seeking harmony between rights and exceptions, and in light of copyright haphazard evolution (by simply adding new rights when a new way of using protected content was invented), a single new core norm is proposed: the reverse three-step test.


Intellectual Property, Trade & Development: The State Of Play, Daniel J. Gervais Jan 2005

Intellectual Property, Trade & Development: The State Of Play, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

This Article considers, first, available economic, social, and cultural analyses of the impact of intellectual property protection in developing countries. Economics provides a useful set of analytical tools and are directly relevant, in particular since the successfully arranged marriage of IP and trade rules after which it became inevitable that IP rules would be measured using an economic yardstick. The Paper also considers the claim that making proper intellectual property policy is impossible or inherently unreliable because theoretical models are inadequate or valid empirical data unavailable. Against this backdrop, the Article then examines the emergence of the World Trade Organization …


The Purpose Of Copyright Law In Canada, Daniel J. Gervais Jan 2005

The Purpose Of Copyright Law In Canada, Daniel J. Gervais

Vanderbilt Law School Faculty Publications

IN THREE RECENT CASES, the Supreme Court of Canada provided several pieces of the Canadian copyright policy puzzle. We now know that the economic purpose of copyright law is instrumentalist in nature, namely, to ensure the orderly production and distribution of, and access to, works of art and intellect. The Court added that copyright can not enter carelessly into the private sphere of individual users. By targeting end-users in recent lawsuits, copyright holders have also found out that it is difficult to enforce a right that has not been properly internalized. After reviewing the Supreme Court trilogy of cases, the …