Intellectual
property law, an increasingly prominent topic of public debate, functions at
the margins or in the background of many communities and organizations. As one
example familiar to professors, a university’s core missions are both to
educate and to promote research across the disciplines, which have largely been
done without the necessity of intellectual property law. But the role of IP at
the university sparks debate, as most tech-transfer offices remain cost
centers, universities begin licensing teaching materials and moving classrooms
online, and universities more zealously guard their trademarks. Many
communities strongly defined by values and missions—museums, libraries and
archives, agricultural or craft cooperatives, musical or dramatic institutions
such as symphonies and theatrical repertories, hospitals, professional sports
associations, and charitable organizations—are experiencing a shifting focus on
intellectual property as both a problem and a possible solution to the
maintenance of their missions. In this panel, we explore the diverse roles that
intellectual property plays to undermine or sustain defining values of
particular communities—values that may be orthogonal or alternative to IP’s
traditional market-driven justification.
Business meeting at program conclusion.