This volume is a compendium of the Sir Hugh Laddie Lectures delivered at University College London (UCL) in the period between 2009 and 2018. This is a public lecture series organised by the Institute of Brand and Innovation Law (IBIL) at UCL Faculty of Laws in honour of IBIL's founder - Professor Sir Hugh Laddie.

This book analyses a select number of incarnations of the originality requirement in different branches of Belgian law in order to establish whether common elements or a common root can be found. These findings will subsequently be applied to the practice of digitalization in law in order to gain a better understanding of how the concept of originality should be interpreted in this matter.

This rise of a particular kind of European Union legislation known as the ‘optional instrument’ is a novel trend in the context of EU law, and one that until now has not been comprehensively mapped or explored. This study examines and discusses existing and proposed EU Optional Instruments (OIs) in different fields of European law, including company law, intellectual property law and procedural law (such as the European Company, the Community ...

This book considers the challenges of creating appropriate intellectual property frameworks in developing economies. It focuses on the small island states of the Pacific region to explore and illustrate the many dilemmas, drawing together considerations of policy, theories of development and law, and empirical studies to suggest solutions and possible strategies.

The protection of the knowledge and practises of local and indigenous groups has been discussed in various forums in recent times. International agreements such as the Convention on Biological Diversity address the importance of protecting traditional knowledge and practises, This book examines traditional knowledge protection in the area of traditional medical knowledge, often utilised in contemporary medicine, and consequently subject to pat...

Consortium agreements for research projects of the European Commission are managed in Brussels. Therefore Belgian law is often applicable to these contracts. As organisations from all European Union member states and associated countries are potential contracting parties, numerous basic questions about Belgian contract law and multiparty agreements in particular arise. This book takes a look at model agreements from a Belgian contract law pers...

This book examines alternative ways of protecting patent rights using the law and economics framework of property and liability rules. Traditional compulsory licenses are compared with the most recent discussions on the choice between granting or denying injunctive relief for patents (ex post liability rules). .

The intangible cultural heritage (ICH) of the world’s communities is an inheritance that has been passed down through many generations. Its survival is increasingly threatened by the realities of post-modern society. The common thread in this book is the authors’ belief that regulatory regimes must be designed so that ICH will not only be safeguarded in archives and museums but also in its living form.