The Precautionary Principle and Its Application in the Intellectual Property Context: Towards a Public Domain Impact Assessment

• Author: Graham J Reynolds
• Pages: 95-113

95

EE



The Precautionary Principle and Its

Application in the Intellectual Property

Context: Towards a Public Domain Impact

Assessment

  1

 : This chapter considers whether the precautionary princi-

ple —a central element of contemporary environmental law and policy —

can be usefully applied in the intellectual property context as a means

through which the public domain can be protected. Assuming the import-

ance of the public domain, and arguing that expansions in intellectual

property protection risk harming the public domain, this chapter contends

that it is appropriate to apply the precautionary principle in the intellectual

property context in order to guard against harm to the public domain; sug-

gests several ways in which a precautionary principle (or a precautionary ap-

proach) could be applied in the intellectual property context; and considers

one possible instantiation of the precautionary principle in the context of

intellectual property reform, namely in the form of a Public Domain Impact

Assessment (PDIA). Modelled on the Canadian Environmental Assessment

Act, the PDIA is envisioned as a process through which proposals for intel-

lectual property reform, prior to their enactment, are evaluated by an in-

1 The author is grateful to Scott Campbell, Meinhard Doelle, Matthew Herder, Jennifer

Llewellyn, Meghan Murtha, Justine Pila, David VanderZwaag, and two anonymous

reviewers, for their valuable comments on an earlier draft of this chapter. He would also

like to thank participants at the Multidisciplinary Approaches to Intellectual Property

Law workshop in Ottawa, Ontario, for their valuable feedback on a presentation of an

earlier version of this chapter. Any errors or omissions are solely the responsibility of

the author.

96 •   

dependent review panel in order to determine their potential impact on the

public domain.

: Dans ce chapitre, on examine dans quelle mesure le principe

deprécaution — un élément central du droit et des politiques en environ-

nement — peut être appliqué à bon escient dans le contexte de la propriété

intellectuelle, en tant qu’outil servant à protéger le domaine public. En te-

nant compte de l’importance du domaine public, et en armant que l’exten-

sion de la protection de la propriété intellectuelle risque de porter préjudice

au domaine public, on soutient dans ce chapitre qu’il convient d’appliquer

le principe de précaution au contexte de la propriété intellectuelle dans

le but d’éviter de nuire au domaine public. L’auteur propose diérentes

manières d’appliquer le principe de précaution (ou, à tout le moins, une

approche de précaution) au contexte de la propriété intellectuelle; il exa-

mine en outre une éventuelle mise en application du principe deprécaution

dans le contexte de la réforme de la propriété intellectuelle, notamment

sous la forme d’un Processus d’évaluation de l’impact sur le domaine public

(PÉIDP). Façonné suivant le modèle de la Loi canadienne sur l’évaluation en-

vironnementale, le PÉIDP est conçu comme un processus au moyen duquel

des propositions de réforme de la propriété intellectuelle seraient, avant

leur adoption, évaluées par un comité d’examen indépendant, chargé de se

prononcer sur leur incidence éventuelle sur le domaine public.

A. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY LAW, THE

ENVIRONMENTAL MOVEMENT, AND

THE PUBLIC DOMAIN

In 1997, James Boyle, seeking to protect the public domain through the con-

struction of a politics of intellectual property, drew inspiration from the en-

vironmental movement.2 Pointing to the ways in which the environmental

movement “piggybacked on existing sources of conservationist sentiment,

including the aesthetic and recreational values held by hikers, campers,

and birdwatchers” in order to “buil[d] coalitions between those who might

be aected by environmental changes,”3 Boyle argued that “[i]n one very

real sense, the environmental movement invented the environment so that

2 James Boyle, “A Politics of Intellectual Property: Environmentalism for the Net?” (1997)

47 Duke LJ 87.

3 Ibid at 112.