Reviews the database directive 96/9/EC, including the EU and national case law and its relationship with contract, unfair competition law, trade secrets, TPMs and their legal protection (ACPs), the directive on the re-use of public sector information and machine-generated data (inc. the EC Data...

The Database Directive, which created a new database sui generis right and harmonized the copyright provisions for databases, does not exclude quot;state databasesquot; from protection. The question is whether the state should benefit from such intellectual property protection. De lege ferenda,...

This article reviews the national case law and summarises the views of commentators relating to the concept of substantial investment. This the requirement for a database to be protected by the European sui generis right. The discussion shows that the decisions rarely specify what the level of...

This paper contributes to the question whether technology does increase subjective well-being in a society. Intellectual property rights (IPRs) document the inventiveness of a society and are a legal byproduct of innovations. The impact of these IPRs on subjective well-being are analyzed...

One of the questions that this Congress addresses concerns an important relationship between competition law and intellectual property rights, namely the refusal to licence an intellectual property right such as a patent, trade mark, design or copyright and the correlative power of the...

At first sight, it may not seem like copyright plays a role in the fight against climate change and more generally the protection of the environment. But in many ways, it does, and it does so with, maybe surprisingly, quite some importance. Indeed, copyright works can be extremely varied. In the...

The predominant justification for most intellectual property rights is the incentive theory or utilitarian rationale. Behind this justification lies the Western idea of progress and its derivatives, liberalism, capitalism and consumerism. This article shows that the progress ideology rests on...

Patent laws can do their bit to help reduce our greenhouse gas emissions. In 2009, accelerated grant procedures and reduction of fees have been put in place by among others the UK and US patent offices. Private initiatives such as the eco-patent commons to licence technology free of charge have...

It has been over fifteen years since the EU started harmonizing copyright law. This original Handbook takes stock and questions what the future of EU copyright should be. What went wrong with the harmonization acquits? What did the directives do well? Should copyright be further harmonized? Each...