A Dictionary of Intellectual Property Law (A review)

Peter Groves recently* published the Dictionary of Intellectual Property Law. This book is an extremely useful compendium of all the mysterious IP terms which are commonly used by lawyers, in contracts, in judgments and in government consultations in the UK, Europe and USA. Each concept has a pithy description including cross references to other terms where this would be useful.

The dictionary even covers things you might not, at first glance, associate with IP law such as AdWords and zoetropes. Naturally, the IPKat gets a special mention!

 If you want a second opinion here are some of the (publisher selected) comments on the book when it was first published:

‘Confused between community patent review and community patents? Lost in a thicket of dockets, rocket or otherwise? Let Peter Groves’ Dictionary of Intellectual Property Law be your guide. Filling almost 500 often lighthearted, occasionally acerbic, but invariably fact-packed pages, the book takes you from the ActionAid Chip and the Air Pirates case through BIRPI, Cognating, Dockets, Evergreening; Jepson, Pedrick’s cat and Simkins; PHOSITA, Trundlehumpers, the verb “to Uncopyright” and X-Patents, all the way to Zwart maken. Essential reading.’ – David Musker, Partner, RGC Jenkins & Co.

 ‘Do not be put off by the word “dictionary”. This is a fascinating, witty and erudite little volume, packed with interesting and useful information on the whole gamut of intellectual property. It leaves one (this one anyway) hungering for more and wanting to delve more deeply into fields that have nothing to do with earning one’s daily bread.’ – Tony McStea, Senior Patent Attorney, Global Patents, Givaudan Schweiz AG

If you bought the book and it’s missing a key term or the definition hasn't helped to untangle to confusion, fear not. New definitions are suggested and refined on the IP Dictionary blawg (www.dictionaryofiplaw.blogspot.co.uk) where users can even suggest new terms for inclusion in the next edition.

This book should be of use for everyone interested in the world of IP law from the aspiring student, to the lawyer. It is written so clearly and comprehensively that it is hopefully also useful for artists seeking to better understand and enforce their rights.

The paperback edition is available online for around £20. The author, Peter Groves, amongst many other things, writes for the Ipso Jure blog (www.ipsojure.co.uk).

 *OK, so not that recently, Feb 2011. But the paperback edition is much more recent!

Forging Art

Need any tips?

A new book by Jonathon Keats (art critic, journalist, novelist and artist) might be right up your street.

"Forged: Why Fakes Are the Great Art of Our Age", which was published last month, is said to "[explore] art forgery from ancient times to the present. In chapters combining lively biography with insightful art criticism, Jonathon Keats profiles individual art forgers and connects their stories to broader themes about the role of forgeries in society. From the Renaissance master Andrea del Sarto who faked a Raphael masterpiece at the request of his Medici patrons, to the Vermeer counterfeiter Han van Meegeren who duped the avaricious Hermann Göring, to the frustrated British artist Eric Hebborn, who began forging to expose the ignorance of experts, art forgers have challenged 'legitimate' art in their own time, breaching accepted practices and upsetting the status quo. They have also provocatively confronted many of the present-day cultural anxieties that are major themes in the arts. Keats uncovers what forgeries--and our reactions to them--reveal about changing conceptions of creativity, identity, authorship, integrity, authenticity, success, and how we assign value to works of art. The book concludes by looking at how artists today have appropriated many aspects of forgery through such practices as street-art stenciling and share-and-share-alike licensing, and how these open-source "copyleft" strategies have the potential to make legitimate art meaningful again."

It sounds like a really interesting read.

Art and Copyright: a new edition

If any book is described as having "missed the bus", those words are usually taken as a reproach to the author or publisher. In this case, however, we have the reverse situation -- it is the bus that has missed the book.  It is with deep regret that I must acknowledge that the "red bus" manipulated photo copyright infringement action in Temple Island Collections v New English Tea (see here, here and here if you are a recent reader of this weblog) came too late for analysis and inclusion within the excellent and enjoyable second edition of Simon Stokes' Art and Copyright, which was handsomely published by Hart last month. Simon, if you don't already know of him, is a partner in the London office of Blake Lapthorn, a Visiting Research Fellow at Bournemouth Law School and, though this isn't officially written down anywhere, a true enthusiast and a nice guy.

The publishers set out the stall for this new edition by describing it as follows:

"In recent years the intellectual property protection afforded to works of art has received increased attention from artists, museums, galleries, auction houses, publishers and their professional staff and legal advisers, as well as from those teaching or studying copyright and/or the law of cultural property. This was the first text to examine in detail the intellectual property rights protecting artistic works and artists' rights generally in the United Kingdom. 

First published in 2001, Art and Copyright has established itself as a leading text in the field. Now revised and updated, the second edition includes expanded coverage of Artist's Resale Right and the relationship between designs law and artistic works, as well as greater coverage of new media and art, and digital developments generally. It also includes additional precedent materials and checklists. It remains an invaluable work for all those involved in art law and for intellectual property lawyers involved with the exploitation and/or sale of artistic works, as well as for intellectual property academics, researchers, law students, curators, publishers, artists, gallery owners and all those interested in how the law protects artistic works".

Inevitably, given that copyright to a large extent is a "one size fits all" concept, any book on copyright and art must make regular references to cases that involve copyright but not art, and indeed to materials that are focused on neither copyright nor art but which affect that topic. Here the author's peripheral vision enables him to trawl the wider area of intellectual property for data that sheds light on his chosen topic. This is one of the book's greatest strengths: anyone coming to the subject for the first time will learn a good deal about intellectual property in general, in an indirect and fairly painless manner.

The book can however be improved.  For one thing, many of the footnotes contain content which is, in my opinion, interesting and important enough to gain promotion to the main text; it's a shame to leave it down at the bottom of the page where readers might miss it. Secondly, the footnotes as a whole are a bit of a pedant's paradise: they would benefit from some nitpicking (this is something that most readers are probably oblivious too, but I just can't help noticing ...). But none of this detracts from the fact that this is an entertaining, thoughtful and (for a legal work) affordable work by an author who continues to enrich the literature on this subject.

Bibliographic data: publication date February 2012. Paperback, xliv + 261 pages. ISBN 9781849461627. Price £35. Book's web page here.

"Who is Gillian? What is she ...?"

Yours for only £12.74, here

It's not yet featuring on the publisher's website, but Copyright Law for Artists, Photographers and Designers is already in this reviewer's hands. One of A & C Black's Essential Guides series, along with The Essential Guide to Business for Artists and Designers by Alison Branigan, which does not come out till February 2011, this little tome -- it feels like a longer book but the paper is hugely thick and it's only 96 pages long -- is written by Gillian Davies.

At this point, copyright experts will be excited by the prospect of an attractive, handsomely illustrated and easy-to-understand text from one of the world's great copyright lawyers -- but the excitement dies down in legal quarters when it is discovered that the author is not the Gillian Davies, a leading contributor to Copinger and Skone James and towering personality in the international copyright arena. Nor is she the other Gillian Davies or the other other Gillian Davies, but merely an other Gillian Davies. Calling your son Wayne Rooney may not turn him into a famous footballer but calling your daughter Gillian Davies will, it seems, firmly implant her within the cusp of law and art, one way or another.

What about the book, I hear you say. It's not bad. Seriously. And this is not surprising. Anyone whose grateful acknowledgements extend to ACID Queen Dids Macdonald and to the gentle, knowledgeable Simon Stokes has either done their homework well or knows who to get to do it for them. Gillian however knows something that many copyright experts don't know -- she knows her readership and pitches her words of advice and warning (Beware of the Bridgeman ...) at a level that will be at once appreciated and understood. This book will never replace Copinger and Skone James, but anyone who reads it may well be saved from having to pay some expensive IP specialists to read Copinger and Skone James for them.