Kritika: Essays on Intellectual Property: Volume 6

The fields of intellectual property have broadened and deepened in so many ways that commentators struggle to keep up with the ceaseless rush of developments and hot topics. Kritika: Essays on Intellectual Property is a series that is designed to help authors escape this rush. It creates a forum for authors who wish to more deeply question, investigate and reflect upon the evolving themes and principles of the discipline. This second volume of Kritika again brings together leading scholars from different fields and disciplines, who in their essays offer reflections on the topics of cognitive dissonance in the economics of patent protection; how innovation flourishes in China’s ‘fertile land of intellectual property piracy’; determining the legitimate enclosure of IP exclusivity; the revival of the essential facilities doctrine as a result of patents blocking access to standards; disciplining cumulative protection of the design of mass products; trademark law’s reluctance to recognize a sign’s degeneration into a common product designation; geographies of taste, fashion and tradition; and on the risk of ever-increasing intellectual property protection backfiring on its zealous promoters.