Law Commons^™

Socially Responsible Corporate Ip, J. Janewa Osei-Tutu

Faculty Publications

Many companies practice corporate social responsibility (CSR) as part of their branding and public relations efforts. For example, as part of their CSR strategies, some companies adopt voluntary codes of conduct in an effort to respect human rights. This Article contemplates the application of CSR principles to trade-related intellectual property (IP). In theory, patent and copyright laws promote progress and innovation, which is why IP rights are beneficial for both IP owners and for the public. Trademark rights encourage businesses to maintain certain standards and allow consumers to make more efficient choices. Though IP rights are often discussed in relation …

Prioritising Human Development In African Intellectual Property Law, J. Janewa Oseitutu

Faculty Publications

The global intellectual property structure has been criticised for requiring developing nations to adopt intellectual property standards that are appropriate for industrialised countries. Some commentators have observed that industrialised nations, such as the United States, developed their economies by borrowing from others, but that through the use of globalised intellectual property standards, they have effectively limited other nations from doing the same. This article does not aim to revisit the question of the suitability of the existing intellectual property standards for developing countries. Nor does it seek to analyse whether, as a general proposition, intellectual property rights should be expanded …

Humanizing Intellectual Property: Moving Beyond The Natural Rights Property Focus, J. Janewa Oseitutu

Faculty Publications

This Article compares the natural rights property framework with the human rights framework for intellectual property. These two frameworks share a common theoretical basis in the natural rights tradition, but they appear to lead to conflicting outcomes. Proponents of natural rights to intellectual property tend to support more expansive intellectual property protections. Advocates of a human rights approach to intellectual property contend, however, that human rights will have a moderating influence on intellectual property law. This Article is among the first scholarly works to explore the apparent conflict between these two important frameworks for intellectual property. It concludes that a …

Harmonizing Cultural Ip Across Borders: Fashionable Bags & Ghanaian Adinkra Symbols, J. Janewa Oseitutu

Faculty Publications

Global copyright and trademark laws protect symbols, names, and literary and artistic works. However, when their primary significance is cultural, because they are neither individual original works nor symbols that are used as commercial identifiers, intellectual property laws do not protect these symbols or artistic works. This is true, even if these goods are protected under national laws as part of that nation’s cultural heritage. Once these cultural goods cross borders, there is no international law that will enable the country from which these goods originate to assert its rights in other countries. This Article characterizes these cultural goods as …

Ip Enforcement Under The Tpp: Civil And Administrative Procedures And Remedies, Provisional Measures In Tpp (Articles, 18.71-18.76), J. Janewa Osei-Tutu

Faculty Publications

No abstract provided.

Human Development As A Core Objective Of Global Intellectual Property, J. Janewa Oseitutu

Faculty Publications

Global intellectual property obligations shape domestic laws and policies. More than twenty years since the first multilateral trade-based intellectual property agreement, critics contend that global intellectual property law prioritizes intellectual property rights over other interests, and profits over people. Faced with international intellectual-property obligations, nations have been forced to justify laws and policies designed to promote human development in areas such as health and education as exceptions to intellectual property protection. This is the result of legal interpretations that treat the objectives of intellectual property protection and human development as inconsistent with one another. Drawing on the objectives of trade …

Corporate "Human Rights" To Intellectual Property Protection?, J. Janewa Oseitutu

Faculty Publications

The global intellectual property system protects the interests of intellectual property owners, sometimes to the detriment of competing interests like public health or access to knowledge. Some scholars have proposed a human rights framework for intellectual property as a way to inject balance into the current system. However, the assertion that human rights will bring balance is often coupled with the assumption that corporations are, by definition, excluded from human rights-based intellectual property claims. Yet, corporations have used, and are likely to continue to use, human rights law to ground their intellectual property claims. Since multinational corporations were a major …

Agricultural Biotechnology: Drawing On International Law To Promote Progress, J. Janewa Oseitutu

Faculty Publications

In Bowman v. Monsanto, the Supreme Court declined to apply the principle of exhaustion to limit the patentee’s ability to control the reproduction of self-replicating inventions. This decision was justified from a patent law perspective on the basis that patent holder has a right to prevent others from making the invention. But what happens when we take other perspectives into account? For instance, a farmer might have human rights or other rights that may need to be balanced against the patentee’s right. Since globalized intellectual property standards were established through international agreements and much of the resistance to intellectual property …

Private Rights For The Public Good?, J. Janewa Oseitutu

Faculty Publications

The counterfeit medicines discussion is an example of how the use of a turbid rationale for greater intellectual property protections serves sophisticated private interests while potentially harming the public interest. The risk of harm created by counterfeit medicines provides a compelling counter-narrative to the access to medicines critique of intellectual property rights.

Intellectual property advocates and the pharmaceutical industry have portrayed poor global enforcement of intellectual property rights as contributing to the proliferation of dangerous counterfeit medications. Yet, the deliberate linkage in the literature between weak intellectual property rights and the harms caused by counterfeit medicines provides a justification for …

Value Divergence In Global Intellectual Property Law, J. Janewa Oseitutu

Faculty Publications

It is a challenge for the United States to adequately protect the interests of its intellectual property industries, especially when U.S. interests are not in line with the social, cultural, and economic goals of other nations. Yet, as a major exporter of intellectual property protected goods, the U.S. has an interest in negotiating effective international intellectual property agreements that are perceived to be legitimate by the state signatories and their constituents. Focusing on value divergence, this article contributes to the growing body of literature on developing a robust but flexible global intellectual property system, arguing that the trade-based approach to …

A Sui Generis Regime For Traditional Knowledge: The Cultural Divide In Intellectual Property Law, J. Janewa Oseitutu

Faculty Publications

To some extent, traditional knowledge can be protected under various intellectual property laws, but there is no effective international legal protection for this subject matter. This has led to proposals for a sui generis regime to protect traditional knowledge. The precise contours of the right are yet to be determined but a sui generis right could include perpetual protection. It could also result in protection for historical communal works and for knowledge that may be useful but that is not inventive according to the standards of intellectual property law.

Developing countries have been more supportive of an international traditional knowledge …

Traditional Knowlege: Is Perpetual Protection A Good Idea?, J. Janewa Oseitutu

Faculty Publications

Most of the international dialogue about traditional knowledge has taken place within the context of an intellectual property framework with the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) as the primary facilitator of the discussion. Following more than a decade of dialogue, the WIPO Intergovernmental Committee on Intellectual Property and Genetic Resources, Traditional Knowledge and Folklore (WIPO IGC) has been given until the Fall of 2011 to come up with something concrete. Due to the intersection between traditional knowledge and intellectual property, the resulting text is likely to be a significant development for international intellectual property law.

Developing countries have long advocated …

Human Cloning & The Right To Reproduce, Elizabeth Price Foley

Faculty Publications

Explores the contours of the right to reproduce, recognized as a substantive liberty under the Due Process Clauses. Specifically, is the right a positive as well as negative right? Does the right encompass the right to use artificial reproductive technologies (ARTs) such as in vitro fertilization, artificial insemination, or reproductive cloning?