The Main Trends of Intellectual Property Regimes

• Author: Rémi Lallement
• Profession: Charge of Mission (policy analyst), France Stratégie, France
• Pages: 81-89

6

The Main Trends of Intellectual

Property Regimes

Institutional factors clearly play a key role in explaining the

development of common practices in intellectual property and their

links with innovation, all the more so as in most countries and for

most types of intellectual property there has been a general trend

towards extension since the beginning of the 1980s. At first sight and

in approximate terms, it is convenient to refer to a trend towards

strengthening, even if this interpretation is debatable, as is shown

further on. Both political and jurisprudential, the reinforcement in

question corresponds in particular to an extension of the protection

provided by intellectual property rights, especially in terms of field

covered and term. It also involves judicial changes concerning rulings

that are more favorable to the entitled parties than before. The

development of these intellectual property regimes, which correspond

to the advent of a “pro-patent era”, first started in the United States

before gradually spreading all over the world.

6.1. A reinforcement trend deriving mostly from America

History is marked by alternating phases of reinforcement and

weakening of intellectual property rights regimes especially in relation

to patents. Thus, in the middle of the 19th Century most European

countries saw the beginning of an anti-patent movement that

approximately lasted until the 1870s, a period dominated by the

notions of free-trading. In France, for example, a law passed in 1844

Intellectual Property and Innovation Protection: New Practices and New Policy Issues,

First Edition. Rémi Lallement.

© ISTE Ltd 2017. Published by ISTE Ltd and John Wiley & Sons, Inc.