Preface

• Author: David Vaver
• Profession: Professor of Law. Osgoode Hall Law School, York University
• Pages: 19-20

PREFACE

Intellectual property suddenly is hot. Comedians joke about it. The

mainstream press features it. We read of some rock star's "patented"

life-

style,

of someone "copyrighting" an idea, of a hockey player's "trade-

mark" slapshot, and of nations fighting trade wars over "piracy" of video-

tapes,

compact disks, and computer soltware. Anyone with an idea talks

of his or her "intellectual property" in it. Discussion groups on the Inter-

net buzz about intellectual property — and its impending death. The pre-

serve of a select group of specialist lawyers has suddenly shifted to the

screens and the streets. Or so it seems. Like the old story about the blind

men trying to tell the shape of an elephant by standing at different ends

and touching different parts of it, what one sees and hears about intellec-

tual property is often confusing and sometimes downright wrong.

This book examines the three main branches of modern intellectual

property law: copyright (chapter 2), patents (chapter 3), and trade-marks

(chapter 4). Chapter 5 discusses how the rights are managed and enforced,

and chapter 6 concludes by looking at reform and the future. The account

is necessarily abbreviated. One text on Canadian copyright law alone

runs into thousands of pages, and the detail and nuance possible in such

a work cannot be achieved in a shorter and more general book.

This book is directed towards anyone who wants to know more

about these subjects: the general reader, as much as the university stu-

dent or the non-specialist lawyer. The footnotes are there for lawyers

and law students, who would otherwise not believe a word of what is

said in the text; but citation and a detailed discussion of many disputed

points have often been condensed or omitted. General readers can safely

avert their eyes from the bottom of most pages without missing any-

thing of substance except cross-references. A glossary at the back deals

with

technical terms and abbreviations.