Taubman, Antony --- "The Public Domain and International Intellectual Property Law Treaties" [2007] ELECD 152; in Waelde, Charlotte; MacQueen, Hector (eds), "Intellectual Property" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Intellectual Property

Editor(s): Waelde, Charlotte; MacQueen, Hector

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845428747

Section: Chapter 4

Section Title: The Public Domain and International Intellectual Property Law Treaties

Author(s): Taubman, Antony

Number of pages: 33

Extract:

4. The public domain and international
intellectual property law treaties
Antony Taubman*

When `Omer smote `is bloomin' lyre, He'd `eard men sing by land an' sea;
An' what he thought `e might require, `E went an' took ­ the same as me! (Rudyard
Kipling, Barrack-Room Ballads)

Every text is from the outset under the jurisdiction of other discourses which impose
a universe on it. (Julia Kristeva, Desire in Language: A Semiotic Approach to Litera-
ture and Art, 1980)



1 INTRODUCTION: THE INTERNATIONAL FACE OF
PUBLIC DOMAINS
This chapter, too, has many faces. The agonistic yet symbiotic pas-de-deux be-
tween public domains and international intellectual property (IP) treaties1 can
offer unexpectedly diverse aspects for reflection, from several vantage points:

l international public goods as a link between the public domain and the
IP system;
l the conception or construction of an international public domain;
l the public domain status of treaties as texts in themselves;


* This chapter expresses personal views of the author and explores ideas that have
no connection with any official appointment; the views expressed should not be attributed
to WIPO, its Member States or its Secretariat. Based on research undertaken at the Aus-
tralian Center for Intellectual Property in Agriculture (ACIPA), College of Law,
Australian National University.
1
The following treaties are discussed in particular: the Stockholm Act of the Paris
Convention for the Protection of Industrial Property (1967), henceforth `Paris'; the Paris
Act of the Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and Artistic ...