Book Review: Indigenous Intellectual Property

Almighty tomes occasionally cross this Kat's desk for review, and she was very excited to receive her copy of Edward Elgar's Indigenous Intellectual Property. Part of the publisher's series of research handbooks on IP, this book, "considers the international struggle to provide for proper and just protection of Indigenous intellectual property (IP)" and is a collection of chapters by experts in the field.

This Kat is very pleased to see more attention devoted to this area of law and policy.  Many of the authors will be well-known to readers from their work in other parts of IP.   The book covers the major IP rights (patents, trade marks, copyright, design, and related rights), in addition to privacy law and identity rights. The strength and high concentration of Indigenous IP researchers in the Australasia region is reflected with a number of chapters looking at Australia and New Zealand. Slightly closer to this Kat's childhood home, a chapter on governance challenges in Canada analyses the Vancouver 2010 Olympic "Ilanaaq the Inuskshuk" logo, which borrows heavily from Nunavut official flags.  The authors note, with some irony, that the Aboriginal peoples of Canada were not allowed to use the logo under the Olympic and Paralympic Marks Act.

Some more from the publisher:

This Handbook considers the international struggle to provide for proper and just protection of Indigenous intellectual property. Leading scholars consider legal and policy controversies over Indigenous knowledge in the fields of international law, copyright law, trademark law, patent law, trade secrets law, and cultural heritage. This collection examines national developments in Indigenous intellectual property from around the world. As well as examining the historical origins of conflicts over Indigenous knowledge, the volume examines new challenges to Indigenous intellectual property from emerging developments in information technology, biotechnology, and climate change.

This book joins other titles in series, edited by founding Kat Jeremy Phillips, including Research Handbook on the Future of EU Copyright by Estelle Derclaye and the Research Handbook on Cross-border Enforcement of Intellectual Property by Paul Torremans.

Bibliographic information: Indigenous Intellectual Property: A Handbook of Contemporary Research,  Research Handbooks in Intellectual Property series. Edited by Matthew Rimmer, Professor of Intellectual Property and Innovation Law, Faculty of Law, Queensland University of Technology (QUT), Australia, 2015, 752 pp, Hardback, available for £175.50, E-book available February 18th for £48.00