The Office of Knowledge Transfer, in collaboration with the research team TECHNIS and the Postgraduate in Innovation and Entrepreneurship TIME Master’s in Business Economics organizes on Tuesday 10 May at 13:00 the 10th in a row seminar of the Office for the period 2021-2022.

The speaker is Phoebe Li, from Sussex Law School.
The title of the presentation is “Intellectual property duties and innovation”.

To receive the Zoom link, contact the Knowledge Transfer Office at least one hour before the seminar.

Abstract: This presentation is based on a recent paper which considers the challenge posed by Peter Drahos’ work on the ‘duties of privilege’, and provides a normative analysis of an intellectual property (IP) regime by articulating IP duties as a lens for defining the optimal scope of IP monopolies. It builds on a correlative duty-based approach as a parameter to better approximating dignitarian thoughts in IP. A paradigm shift to a balanced framework incorporating the duty approach would reconfigure the imbalance and redress the undesirable consequences of inequality. A duty-based approach is not advocating a dichotomy regime separating rights from duties or replacing rights with duties, but a binary one taking full advantage of the extant IP flexibilities by embedding a sense of belonging, connectedness, honour and respect in a community of IP rights. A duty-based approach will work towards a collaborative humanitarian discourse and serve as a nuanced underpinning to the interface of IP power and competition where impacts will benefit society.  Internal and external forces are identified for regulating IP following a comprehensive study on the philosophies of ownership.  It concludes by proposing the primary waves of IP duties: a duty to self-moderation; a duty to benefit sharing; a duty to open innovation, and a duty to dissemination.