Who wins with intellectual property?

Associate Professor Yee Fen Lim

Every business has knowledge and property such as a trademark that it needs to protect. An in-house adviser or an outside consultant are vital. Courses at Macquarie University can equip people to work in this fast-moving field.

Associate Professor Yee Fen Lim teaches in the Department of Law and the Institute of Innovation at Macquarie, and is also a Visiting Professor at Nanyang Technological University in Singapore.

“Businesses need to protect what belongs to them, but not tread on the territory of other people,” she says. “Everyone from the local real estate agent or pharmacy to bio-tech conglomerates has intellectual property.”

This applies especially to the Internet, she says, where competitors must be kept at bay.

About the industry

Legislative changes mean that legal knowledge is a basic requirement for working in the field. Those wanting jobs can enhance their basic law degree with the unit in intellectual property that Lim teaches at the Macquarie Institute of Innovation. Alternatively, students can enter with a business degree, which they enrich with postgrad legal qualifications.

Companies and others that have not taken protective precautions can find themselves in trouble. When a whole subject offered at a well-known UK university was ripped off, the creator threatened litigation. A settlement including monetary damages was negotiated.

Similarly, many businesses are often not even aware of the substantial intellectual property they own, let alone being in a position to actively protect these intangible assets.

Related challenges in cyberspace

The role of an intellectual property manager does not end within a company. Digitisation has expanded work for both owners and users. But it has also upset the traditional balance between rewarding the creator and benefiting society. With recent changes in the law, creators like the huge providers of entertainment products, from software to music to movies, now “have the upper hand”, Lim says. “They have deep pockets, and can influence policy. But the little person in the street has to be heard, too.”

A recent decision in the Federal Court of Australia on the popular peer-to-peer network Kazaa, hailed as a victory for the big record companies in stopping the piracy of songs, has also been seen as a victory for peer-to-peer technology itself.

The future

The law is still developing, and needs to be shaped by both owners and users of intellectual property. Lim sees knowledge and discussion as the way forward.

“People working in the industry and users ought to have a bigger say. At present, the dialogue is too one-sided,” she says. “Over the next couple of decades, we have to figure out a new balance that better serves the public.”  

For further information, contact Lim at YeeFen.Lim@mq.edu.au

The Department of Law website is at www.law.mq.edu.au

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