The Eureka Myth: Creators, Innovators and Everyday Intellectual Property

Are innovation and creativity helped or hindered by our intellectual property laws? In the two hundred plus years since the Constitution enshrined protections for those who create and innovate, we’re still debating the merits of IP laws and whether or not they actually work as intended. Artists, scientists, businesses, and the lawyers who serve them, as well as the Americans who benefit from their creations all still wonder: what facilitates innovation and creativity in our digital age? And what role, if any, do our intellectual property laws play in the growth of innovation and creativity in the United States?

Incentivizing the “progress of science and the useful arts” has been the goal of intellectual property law since our constitutional beginnings. The Eureka Myth cuts through the current debates and goes straight to the source: the artists and innovators themselves. Silbey makes sense of the intersections between intellectual property law and creative and innovative activity by centering on the stories told by artists, scientists, their employers, lawyers and managers, describing how and why they create and innovate and whether or how IP law plays a role in their activities. Their employers, business partners, managers, and lawyers also describe their role in facilitating the creative and innovative work. Silbey’s connections and distinctions made between the stories and statutes serve to inform present and future innovative and creative communities.

Breaking new ground in its examination of the U.S. economy and cultural identity, The Eureka Myth draws out new and surprising conclusions about the sometimes misinterpreted relationships between creativity and intellectual property protections.

发言人详细信息

Professor Jessica Silbey teaches at Suffolk University Law School in Boston in the areas of intellectual property and constitutional law. Professor Silbey received her B.A. from Stanford University and her J.D. and Ph.D. (Comparative Literature) from the University of Michigan. After clerking for Judge Robert E. Keeton on the United States District Court for the District of Massachusetts and Judge Levin Campbell on the United States Court of Appeals for the First Circuit, she practiced law in the disputes department of the Boston office of Foley Hoag LLP focusing on intellectual property, bankruptcy and reproductive rights. Professor Silbey’s scholarly expertise is in the cultural analysis of law, exploring the law beyond its doctrine to the contexts and processes in which legal relations develop and become significant for everyday actors. In the field of intellectual property, Professor Silbey’s scholarship focuses on the humanistic and sociological dimensions of the legal regulation of creative and innovative work. Some of her IP publications include The Eureka Myth: Creators, Innovators and Everyday Intellectual Property (Stanford University Press 2014); Patent Variation: Discerning Diversity Among Patent Functions, 45 Loy. U. Chi. L. Rev. 441 (2013); Harvesting Intellectual Property, ‘Inspired Beginnings and ‘Work Makes Work’: Two Stages in the Creative Process of Artists and Innovators, 86 Notre Dame L. R. 2091 (2011), Comparative Tales of Origins and Access: The Future of Intellectual Property Law, 61 Case Wes. Res. L. R. 195 (2011), and Mythical Beginnings of Intellectual Property, 15 Geo. Mason L. R. 319 (2008). Professor Silbey has also published widely in the field of law and film, exploring how film is used as a legal tool and how it becomes an object of legal analysis in light of its history as a cultural object and art form. Representative publications include Law and Justice on the Small Screen (Hart, 2012) (with Peter Robson); Evidence Verité and the Law of Film, 31 Cardozo L. R. 1257 (2010); Cross-Examining Film, 8 U. Md. J. Race, Religion & Gender & L. 101 (2009); and Judges as Film Critics: New Approaches to Filmic Evidence, 39 Mich. J. L. Reform 493 (2004).

日期：
演讲者：
Jessica Silbey
所属机构：
Suffolk