This chapter will delve into the relationship between intellectual property (IP) and human-computer interaction (HCI), examining how intellectual property rights and limitations influence the design process, drive technological progress, and shape user experiences.The chapter provides detailed discussions of the three main types of IP providing recognition and/or financial benefit for what people invent or create: patent, copyright, and trademark.

Clothing designs can be beautiful. But they are also functional. Fashion’s dual nature sits uneasily in intellectual property law, and its treatment by copyright, trademark, and design patent laws has often been perplexing. Much of this difficulty arises from an unclear understanding of the nature of functionality in fashion design. This chapter proposes a robust account of fashion’s function. It argues that aspects of garment designs are functional not only when they affect the physical or technological performance of a garment but also when they affect the perception of the wearer’s body. Generally, clothes are not designed or chosen simply to look good. They are also characteristically designed or chosen to look good on. This approach clarifies the appropriate treatment of fashion design in intellectual property, and it exposes the conceptual limitations of the U.S. Supreme Court’s copyright decision in Star Athletica, L.L.C. v Varsity Brands, Inc.

Since the 2000s, Chinese factories have been notorious for imitating and copying luxury fashion designs, a phenomenon known as ‘shanzhai’. Within the fashion industry, two primary categories of shanzhai practices exist: the imitation or copying of a brand’s name or trademarks, referred to as “counterfeits,” and the imitation or copying of a brand’s designs, referred to as ‘knockoffs’. While band owners can easily enforce their legal rights against the trademark-infringing counterfeits, knockoffs remain a significant concern for international brand owners, since these design features are frequently denied trademark protection. Recent judicial practices suggest that fashion designs and design features in China can be protected under the Anti-Unfair Competition Law. Moreover, Chinese courts are increasingly open to the registration of signature design patterns as non-traditional trademarks, including three-dimensional trademarks and colour trademarks. This chapter provides a comprehensive exploration of China’s evolving approach to these issues and provides a detailed comparison of copyright, trademark, design patent and unfair competition protections against fashion copycats.

Working from the premises that fashion designers ought to enjoy some form of intellectual property protection over their creations and that they benefit from such protection, this chapter explores the problems that fashion designers are likely to face when seeking to enforce their rights in the United Kingdom. Like other commentators, we conclude that designs law in the United Kingdom is a mess and is in need of reform. We also argue that Brexit has made the problems faced by designers worse, without necessarily creating the policy space for meaningful national reform. One consequence may be that designers are likely to rely even more heavily on the copyright system, but this merely shifts the tensions of Brexit from the legislative and political realms to the judicial realm.

This chapter reviews the fashion industry’s uses of utility patents. It first provides an overview of the fashion industry’s patenting activities, looking at how many patents are granted for fashion-related inventions and how large apparel companies obtain those patents. It then examines companies’ use of patents, looking at how patent litigation in the fashion industry compares to other industries. Finally, it turns to the uneasy tension in fashion between function and aesthetics, examining the specific technologies and inventions being claimed in fashion patents to see what can be inferred about the relationship between fashion and intellectual property

Chapter 5 seeks to identify the normative foundations of a property theory of ownership and custody of cultural objects. It begins by examining the case study of the current legislative, administrative, and judicial framework in Italy, which aims to grant cultural institutions an essentially eternal right to control the reproduction and use of images of their cultural holdings. It then addresses the redefinition of a “museum” adopted in 2022 by the International Council of Museums and the implications this may have for the role of cultural institutions. The chapter then seeks to delineate the contours of a property theory of cultural objects and the corresponding sets of in rem rights and in rem duties that should apply to cultural institutions as both proprietors and custodians, by reconsidering the role of “placeness” of cultural institutions and their collections. In particular, a theory of ownership and custody of cultural objects held by cultural institutions should refer to the link between culture and space in considering the mirror-image questions that have been at the center of legal, professional, and public attention, namely: does a cultural institution have an in rem right to appropriate the value components of cultural objects, such as by limiting or prohibiting others from using or reproducing images of items in its collection; and, conversely, does a cultural institution have an in rem duty, as a custodian of culture, to actively make accessible to the public images and other information on items in its collections?

Intellectual property plays a central role in beer law, and this chapter addresses a range of intellectual property issues including trademarks, geographical indication, patents, know-how, and trade secrets. Importantly, the chapter also analyses the beer market on both a global and local level.

This chapter examines how copyright’s bargain is broken when compared against its incentive and rewards rationales. Copyright grants far exceed what is necessary to incentivise initial production and ongoing investments, and the rewards from creative labour do not filter down to the creators copyright was designed to protect. It then shows how reverting copyright to creators after it has been assigned or licensed, mainly through legal mechanisms, can help address these problems, before examining some of the main arguments against reversion rights (e.g. that it unduly imposes upon the freedom of parties to enter into contractual relationships).

This chapter examines how copyright reversion mechanisms developed in US copyright law. It traces the history of such provisions to its present day iteration (an inalienable right for creators to terminate copyright grants after around 35 years). As with the study of British reversionary rights, the chapter highlights how the US provisions have often been rendered ineffective through the behaviour of rightsholders (both before and after reversion mechanisms have been passed). It focuses on how the current termination scheme operates, highlighting its considerable problems: for example, uncertainty over whether sound recordings are covered, and the sheer difficulty of meeting the formalities necessary to exercise the statutory rights.

This chapter is the last of the statute-focused chapters. It concentrates on how reversion rights have developed across the European Union. It briefly examines historical laws that reflect the incentive and reward concerns of subsequent reversion rights, before providing an overview of prominent types of reversion mechanisms in force in the EU as of 2020. This provides valuable context for an analysis of the most recent reversion development in the EU, the implementation of the 2019 Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive (which required Member States to implement, at minimum, a right to end grants of rights where there was a ‘lack of exploitation’). The chapter demonstrates, however, that this provision, and many of its implementations in the domestic laws of Member States, also suffers from the problems identified in the US and UK chapters – poor design, ineffective triggers and the ability of rightsholders to undermine it, for example by contracting out of the scheme’s intended effect.

This chapter delves into the complex legal questions surrounding AI-generated content and intellectual property rights. Because copyright and patent law primarily focus on human authorship and inventorship, the emergence of AI raises questions about the extent to which AI systems can be considered creators. The chapter explores the possibility of AI-generated works receiving copyright or patent protection and the challenges in determining authorship and originality in the context of AI. Additionally, the chapter examines the potential impact of AI on trademark and trade secret law. It discusses whether AI systems can own or hold intellectual property rights, as well as the implications for businesses and individuals who rely on AI-generated content.

This chapter draws all the threads together, highlighting the profound impact that artificial intelligence is likely to have on the landscape of intellectual property. It summarizes the core arguments of the book and sets out the author’s proposed strategies for adapting intellectual property law to the age of AI. By embracing these approaches, the chapter argues, one can ensure that intellectual property law continues to protect human creativity and innovation in the digital age.

Since the advent of ChatGPT in November 2022, public discourse has intensified regarding the intersection of artificial intelligence and intellectual property rights, particularly copyright. Large language models (LLMs) like ChatGPT and Gemini have sparked debates about what deserves copyright protection and what constitutes copyright infringement. Key questions arise: Are LLM-generated outputs original enough to merit copyright protection? And do they infringe upon existing copyrighted works used in their training data? This chapter delves into these issues, examining the legal and ethical implications of training LLMs on copyrighted material. The chapter also explores the concept of fair use, the potential for transformative use of copyrighted works, and the evolving landscape of copyright law in the age of AI.

This chapter considers how AI threatens to diminish the value proposition of IP rights, focusing specifically on trademarks and copyright. It discusses how the intangible nature of these rights relies on a shared societal understanding and belief in their existence and value. AI, however, has the potential to undermine this shared understanding, leading to a decrease in the perceived value of IP. The chapter argues that AI challenges the traditional function of trademarks as indicators of source and quality. As AI-generated content proliferates online, it becomes increasingly difficult to distinguish between authentic and artificial sources, eroding consumer trust and confidence in trademarks. This erosion is exacerbated by AI’s ability to manipulate language and imagery, creating a world where consumers may no longer be able to rely on trademarks as reliable signals of origin or quality. Similarly, AI may challenge the value proposition of copyright by blurring the lines between human and machine creativity. As AI-generated works become more sophisticated and indistinguishable from human-created works, it becomes difficult to assess the originality and authorship of creative content, potentially diminishing the value of copyright protection.

This introductory chapter explores the foundation of intellectual property (IP) in the United States, specifically focusing on the history and purpose of copyright, patent, trademark, and trade secret. It highlights how these pillars have maintained their utilitarian character despite major technological revolutions and emphasizes the disruptive potential of artificial intelligence (AI). As AI technologies increasingly influence creative processes, they raise significant questions about the nature of human contribution and the value of IP. This chapter introduces some of the legal implications of generative AI, including concerns over copyright infringement and the potential need for new IP protections for AI-generated works. It outlines how the rise of AI challenges the traditional metrics of progress and the standards by which human contributions are evaluated. The author suggests that rather than resisting these changes, society should adapt its understanding of IP in a way that reflects the evolving technological landscape. Ultimately, the author argues for a nuanced approach to IP law that recognizes the shifting boundaries of what constitutes valuable innovation, advocating for humility in navigating the complexities of this ongoing transformation. The discussion sets the stage for the rest of the book.

This chapter explores certain intellectual property (IP) rights arising in the context of professional tennis. It starts off with an overview of IP rights and their territorial scope. It goes on to show that IP rights are subject to a regime of ownership. The first relevant right is trademarks. The chapter explains its legal nature, and how trademark issues arise in professional tennis, particularly as regards traditional and non-traditional trademarks, colour marks, shape marks, sound marks, smell and taste marks and motion, gesture marks and holograms. The chapter then proceeds to explain the protection offered under each mark. It then goes on to explore designs, copyright and image rights/publicity rights, as well as patents and trade secrets in tennis. It explores the commercialisation of IP rights in tennis, including sponsorship agreements, licensing agreements, ambush marketing, endorsement contracts, merchandising agreements and broadcasting rights. It concludes by offering an analysis of enforcement of IP rights, contractual remedies and damages claims.