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Grosheide, Willem --- "General introduction" [2010] ELECD 328; in Grosheide, Willem (ed), "Intellectual Property and Human Rights" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Intellectual Property and Human Rights

Editor(s): Grosheide, Willem

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848444478

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: General introduction

Author(s): Grosheide, Willem

Number of pages: 34

Extract:

1. General introduction
Willem Grosheide*

1. INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND HUMAN
RIGHTS: RELATED ORIGIN AND DEVELOPMENT1
It may be said that intellectual property law and human rights law share a
related origin. Both stem from Western European societal developments start-
ing in the nineteenth, if not already in the eighteenth century.2 The indicated
societal developments were of three kinds. The first was the rapid industrial-
ization and economic growth that affected countries unevenly and that was
underpinned to a large extent by scientific, technological and cultural innova-
tions. The second was a growing divide between the countries affected by


* Willem Grosheide is Professor of Intellectual Property Law at the Centre for
Intellectual Property Law (CIER), Molengraaff Institute for Private Law, Utrecht
University and attorney at law with Van Doorne, Amsterdam.
1 In what follows I use intellectual property law as a generic term referring to
the legal system with regard to intellectual property rights, being rights with regard to
the commercial and non-commercial use of information.
Until far into the twentieth century it was customary to refer in this respect to indus-
trial and intellectual property rights. Industrial was used to cover trade-related areas
like patent law, designs law and trademark law; intellectual was used to refer to culture-
related copyrights. Particularly since the conclusion of the WIPO Treaty in 1967 it is
conventional to use the term intellectual property to refer to both industrial and intel-
lectual property rights. Note that this terminology is broader than ...