1. INFO 442: INFORMATION
POLICY AND INTELLECTUAL
PROPERTY
Senait.s
(Bsc,Msc)
4/12/2014 1

2. Chapter Three:
Introduction to Law and Intellectual Property
• Law
• Types of law
• Statutes and Treaties
• Case Law
• Agency Regulations and Executive Orders
• Local Laws
• Intellectual Property
• World Intellectual Property Organization
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3. What is Law?
• Law is a body of rules and system of action or conduct
prescribed by controlling authority, usually enforced
through a set of institutions and must be obeyed and
followed by citizens.
• It shapes politics, economics and society in numerous ways
and serves as a primary social mediator of relations
between people.
• It can be seen as a body of rules or conduct; binding legal
force and effect, prescribed, recognized, and enforced by
controlling authority.
• In ETH. Eg, law refers to any rule that if broken subjects a
party to criminal punishment or civil liability.4/12/2014

4. What is Law? (Cont.)
• Laws in the ETH are made by federal, state, and local
legislatures, judges, the president, state governors, and
administrative agencies.
• It is a mosaic or pattern of statutes, treaties, case law,
administrative agency regulations, executive orders, and
local laws.
• New laws are regularly introduced, old laws are repealed,
and existing laws are modified, so the precise definition of
a particular law may be different in the future from what it
is today; even in other countries
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5. Types of law
• When we look at the types of law from the
perspective of how they are created or where
they come from. Fundamentally, we can say
there are three types of laws based on there
sources:
• i. Legislative process law
• ii. Court-made law
• iii. Agency-made law
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6. Types of law (Cont.)
• Statutory Law or legislative process law
• is derived from Congress debate on issues affecting
citizens; then executive gives approval or Veto on such
issues and pass as laws.
• Court-Made Law (Common Law)
• is the law made by courts.
• Common law evolves narrowly, slowly, with occasional
major decisions.
• A court decides the specific issue before it and no more.
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7. Types of law (Cont.)
• Agency-made law
• Generally courts follow previous decisions made by the
state and regarded as guide already set.
• This is viewed as predictability.
• Courts will also, however, depart when circumstances
require, thereby providing flexibility.
• While sister courts look upon a different court's decision
with a more critical approach and relax its law.
• A lower court must follow the guide from courts above it
and the same court might even change its mind.
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8. Types of law (Cont.)
• Categorization of laws as generated in countries of the
world:
• 1. Contract law, which regulates everything from buying a
bus ticket to trading on derivatives markets.
• 2. Property law defines rights and obligations related to
the transfer and title of personal (often referred to as
chattel) and real property.
• 3. Trust law applies to assets held for investment and
financial security.
• 4. Tort law allows claims for compensation if a person's
rights or property are harmed.
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9. Types of law (Cont.)
• If the harm is criminalised in a statute, criminal offers
means by which the state can prosecute the perpetrator.
• 5. Constitutional law provides a framework for the
creation of law, the protection of human rights and
the election of political representatives.
• 6. Administrative law is used to review the decisions
of government agencies.
• 7. International law governs affairs between Sovereign
States in activities ranging from trade to environmental
regulation or military action.
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10. Statutes and Treaties
• After the federal Constitution, the highest laws are written
laws, or statutes, passed by elected federal lawmakers.
• States have their own constitution and statutes.
• Federal laws generally involve matters that concern the
entire country.
• State laws generally do not reach beyond the borders of
the state.
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11. Statutes and Treaties (Cont.)
• Federal statutes are passed by Congress and signed into
law by the president.
• State statutes are passed by state legislatures and approved
by the governor.
• If a president or governor vetoes, or rejects, a proposed
law, the legislature may override the veto if at least two-
thirds of the members of each house of the legislature vote
for the law.
• Statutes are contained in statutory codes at the federal and
state levels.
• These statutory codes are available in many public libraries,
in law libraries, and in some government buildings, such as
courthouses.4/12/2014 11

12. Statutes and Treaties (Cont.)
• On the federal level, the president has the power to enter
into treaties, with the advice and consent of Congress.
• Treaties are agreements with sovereign nations concerning
a wide range of topics such as environmental protection
and the manufacture of nuclear missiles.
• Most treaties are concerned with the actions of
government employees, but treaties also apply to private
citizens.
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13. Case Law (Cont.)
• Statutes are the primary source of law, and the power to
enact statutes is reserved to elected lawmakers.
• However, judicial decisions also have the force of law.
• Statutes do not cover every conceivable case, and even
when a statute does control a case, the courts may need to
interpret it.
• Judicial decisions are known collectively as case law.
• A judicial decision legally binds the parties in the case, and
also may serve as a law in the same prospective sense as
does a statute.
• In other words, a judicial decision determines the outcome
of the particular case, and also may regulate future conduct
of all persons within the jurisdiction of the court.4/12/2014 13

14. Case Law (Cont.)
• The opinions of courts, taken together, comprise the
common law.
• When there is no statute specifically addressing a legal
dispute, courts look to prior cases for guidance.
• The issues, reasoning, and holdings of prior cases guide
courts in settling similar disputes.
• A prior opinion or collection of opinions on a particular
legal issue is known as precedent, and courts generally
follow precedent, if any, when deciding cases.
• Breaking with precedent may be justified when
circumstances or attitudes have changed, but following
precedent is the norm.
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15. Case Law (Cont.)
• This gives the common law a certain predictability and
consistency.
• The common law often controls civil matters, such as
contract disputes and personal injury cases (torts).
• Almost all criminal laws are statutory, so common law
principles are rarely applied in criminal cases.
• Sometimes courts hear challenges to statutes or
regulations based on constitutional grounds.
• Courts can make law by striking down part or all of a
particular piece of legislation.
• The Supreme Court has the power to make law binding
throughout the country on federal constitutional issues.4/12/2014 15

16. Case Law (Cont.)
• The highest court in each state has the same power to
interpret the state constitution and to issue holdings that
have the force of law.
• Occasionally courts create new law by departing from
existing precedent or by issuing a decision in a case
involving novel issues, called a case of first impression.
• If legislators disagree with the decision, they may nullify the
holding by passing a new statute.
• However, if the court believes that the new statute violates
a constitutional provision, it may strike down all or part of
the new law.4/12/2014 16

17. Case Law (Cont.)
• If courts and lawmakers are at odds, the precise law on a
certain topic can change over and over.
• When researching a legal issue, it is helpful to consult
relevant case law.
• The researcher first finds the relevant annotated statutes,
and then reads the cases that are listed under the statutes.
• Reading case law helps the researcher understand how the
courts interpret statutes, and also how the courts analyze
related issues that are not covered in the statutes.
• Volumes of case law can be found in some public libraries,
in law libraries, in courthouses, and in state government
buildings such as statehouses and state libraries.4/12/2014 17

18. Agency Regulations and Executive Orders
• Administrative agencies may also create laws.
• The federal and state constitutions implicitly give the
legislatures the power to create administrative agencies.
• Administrative agencies are necessary because lawmakers
often lack detailed knowledge about important issues, and
they need experts to manage the regulation of complex
subjects.
• On the federal level, for example, the Department of the
Interior is created by Congress to manage the nation's
natural resources.
• In creating the agency, Congress gave it power to
promulgate regulations concerning the use and protection
of natural resources.
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19. Agency Regulations… (Cont.)
• Administrative agency regulations have the force of law if
they have a binding effect on the rights and duties of
persons.
• For example, Interior Department regulations that prohibit
mining or logging in certain areas of the country are
considered law, even though they are not formulated by an
elected official or judge.
• Federal administrative agency rules are approved by
Congress, so ultimately they are a product of the will of
elected officials.
• Similarly, on the state and local levels, an administrative
agency may promulgate rules that have the force of law,
but only at the pleasure of the elected lawmakers that
created the agency.
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20. Agency Regulations… (Cont.)
• If an agency seeks to change a regulation, it must, in most
cases, inform the public of its intentions and provide the
public with an opportunity to voice concerns at a public
meeting.
• Not all agency regulations have the force of law.
• Agency rules that merely interpret other rules, state policy,
or govern organization, procedure, and practice need not
be obeyed by parties outside the agency.
• Some administrative agencies have quasi-judicial powers.
• That is, they have limited authority to hear disputes and
make binding decisions on matters relevant to the agency.4/12/2014 20

21. Agency Regulations… (Cont.)
• Executive orders are issued to interpret, implement, or administer
laws.
• On the federal level, executive orders are issued by the president or
by another executive branch official under the president's direction.
• Executive orders range from commands for detailed changes in
federal administrative agency procedures to commands for military
action.
• To have the force of law, a federal executive order must be published
in the Federal Register, the official government publication of
executive orders and federal administrative agency regulations.
• On the state level, governors have similar authority to make laws
concerning state administrative agencies and state military
personnel.4/12/2014 21

22. Local Laws
• Local government areas or Counties, cities, and towns also have the
authority to make laws.
• Local laws are issued by elected lawmakers and local administrative
agencies.
• Local laws cannot conflict with state or federal laws.
• Decisions by local courts generally operate as law insofar as they
apply to the participants in the case.
• To a lesser extent, local court decisions may have a prospective effect.
• That is, a local court decision can operate as precedent, but only in
cases brought within the same jurisdiction.
• For example, a decision by a court in Jimma woreda may affect future
court cases in Jimma woreda, but it has no bearing on the law in any
other woreda.
• Local laws can be found in local courthouses, in local libraries, and in
state government libraries.
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23. Intellectual Property
• Intellectual property (IP) could be defined as any work of
authorship, invention, discovery, or other original creation
that may be protected by copyright, patent, trademark, or
other category of law.
• However, not all intellectual property law are handled in
the same way.
• Scholarly works are handled differently from inventions,
discoveries and ideas because the concerns about
protecting them are different.
• IP is divided into two categories: Industrial property,
which includes inventions (patents), trademarks, industrial
designs, and geographic indications of source;4/12/2014 23

24. Intellectual Property (Cont.)
• and Copyright, which includes literary and artistic works
such as novels, poems and plays, films, musical works,
artistic works such as drawings, paintings, photographs and
sculptures, and architectural designs.
• Rights related to copyright include those of performing
artists in their performances, producers of phonograms in
their recordings, and those of broadcasters in their radio
and television programs.
• The term intellectual property refers broadly to the
creations of the human mind.
• Intellectual property rights protect the interests of creators
by giving them property rights over their creations.4/12/2014 24

25. Intellectual Property (Cont.)
• The Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property
Organization (1967) gives the following list of subject
matter protected by intellectual property rights:
• i. literary, artistic and scientific works;
• ii. performances of performing artists, phonograms, and
broadcasts;
• iii. inventions in all fields of human endeavor;
• iv. scientific discoveries;
• v. industrial designs;
• vi. trademarks, service marks, and commercial names and
designations;4/12/2014 25

26. Intellectual Property (Cont.)
• vii. protection against unfair competition; and
• viii. all other rights resulting from intellectual activity in the
industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields.
• The importance of protecting intellectual property was first
recognized in the Paris Convention for the Protection of
Industrial Property in 1883 and the Berne Convention for
the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works in 1886.
• Both treaties are administered by the World Intellectual
Property Organization (WIPO).
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27. Intellectual Property (Cont.)
Countries generally have laws to protect
intellectual property for two main reasons.
• One is to give statutory expression to the moral
and economic rights of creators in their creations
and to the rights of the public in accessing those
creations.
• The second is to promote creativity, and the
dissemination and application of its results, and
to encourage fair trade, which would contribute
to economic and social development.
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28. The Role of WIPO
• The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is an
international organization dedicated to ensuring that the
rights of creators and owners of intellectual property are
protected worldwide, and that inventors and authors are
thus recognized and rewarded for their ingenuity.
• As a specialized agency of the United Nations, WIPO exists
as a forum for its Member States to create and harmonize
rules and practices to protect intellectual property rights.
• Most industrialized nations have protection systems that
are centuries old.
• Many new and developing countries, however, are now
building up their patent, trademark and copyright laws and
systems.4/12/2014 28

29. The Role of WIPO (Cont.)
• With the rapid globalization of trade during the last decade,
WIPO plays a key role in helping these new systems to
evolve through treaty negotiation, legal and technical
assistance, and training in various forms, including in the
area of enforcement of intellectual property rights.
• The field of copyright and related rights has expanded
dramatically as technological developments have brought
new ways of disseminating creations worldwide through
such forms of communication as satellite broadcasting,
compact discs, DVDs and the Internet.
• WIPO is closely involved in the on-going international
debate to shape new standards for copyright protection in
cyberspace.
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30. The Role of WIPO (Cont.)
• WIPO administers the following international treaties on
copyright and related rights:
• i. Berne Convention for the Protection of Literary and
Artistic Works
• ii. Brussels Convention Relating to the Distribution of
Program-Carrying Signals Transmitted by Satellite
• iii. Geneva Convention for the Protection of Producers of
Phonograms Against Unauthorized Duplication of Their
Phonograms
• iv. Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers,
Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting
Organizations4/12/2014 30

31. The Role of WIPO (Cont.)
• v. WIPO Copyright Treaty (WCT)
• vi. WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty
(WPPT)
• vii. WIPO also provides an Arbitration and
Mediation Center, which offers services for the
resolution of international commercial disputes
between private parties involving intellectual
property.
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32. The Role of WIPO (Cont.)
• The subject matter of these proceedings includes
both contractual disputes (such as patent and
software licenses, trademark coexistence
agreements, and research and development
agreements) and non-contractual disputes (such
as patent infringement).
• viii.The Center is also now recognized as the
leading dispute resolution service provider for
disputes arising out of the abusive registration
and use of Internet domain names.4/12/2014 32