The Ongoing Quest to Define Intellectual Property Rights

The concept of intellectual property has been part of the legal landscape for centuries, but was first discussed at length by French philosophers. The French legal system recognized the right of first discovery, stating in the legal code of 1791 that "all new discoveries are the property of the author" and could be protected by patent for up to fifteen years after the initial invention or discovery. The idea of patents which protected new inventions and discoveries and granted certain rights of remuneration to the original innovator was not a new one, even then; the ancient Greek and Jewish traditions also contained certain proscriptions against theft of ideas and inventions. Efforts to define intellectual property continued throughout the 19th and 20th centuries. One of the formative pieces of intellectual property decision-making took place at the Berne Convention in 1886, which reached an international agreement regarding the treatment of copyright in countries other than the one in which it was originally granted.

Any attempt to define intellectual property rights must also take into consideration the concept of fair use, which allows the use of copyrighted materials for certain limited purposes. Allowable uses include the inclusion of quotes in reviews, commentary, or criticism, the use of portions of copyrighted materials for research or educational purposes, and the use of synopses or quotations in news reports or articles regarding the materials in question. Fair use allows scientists to build on the research published in their field without requiring them to pay copyright to the author; this is essential for scientific progress and development of new technologies and theories. Fair use tempers the concept of intellectual property rights to allow reasonable research applications of copyrighted materials, facilitating progress in the scientific community.

Software companies, movie producers, authors, and musicians depend on the concept of intellectual property in order to protect their original works from duplication. Intent is an important part of distinguishing fair use from copyright infringement; parodies and artistic interpretations have traditionally been upheld as not violating the intellectual property rights of the original author, while long excerpts and duplications of the original works have been successfully prosecuted as copyright violations. The courts will undoubtedly continue to define intellectual property rights in order to allow free exchange of information while protecting the rights of the original authors.