Topic: On Intellectual Property Lecturer:Dr. Zhang Qin, State Intellectual Property Office of P.R. China Discussants:Professors from various organizations Dr. Zhang Qin began his speech with his definition of intellectual property: civil subjects’ economic and spiritual rights toward specific information. Different from the right in rem, information is not naturally exclusive. Specifically, the right in rem can be gained through possessing an object while the right to possess information can not be gained in this way. Therefore, it is necessary to protect the latter form of right. Economic right and spiritual right are kinds of award and compensation. And lawmakers of a country represent the interests of that country rather than the whole world. So it is unrealistic to have a worldwide uniform intellectual property law. Three distinct features of intellectual rights (processing information does not mean having the right of owning it; information is generally not a rarity; processing information does not exclude others from using it) lead to problems of market failure and in this case, public right is essential. In general, the right in rem protects both the right itself and the object. However, intellectual property only protects the right. Therefore, the definition of intellectual property should not be the simply sum of object and right and government can also obtain that kind of private right.
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