The conference will examine the history intellectual properties and other systems of knowledge in colonial and post-colonial regimes. The event is part of the research project Creative IPR: The history of intellectual property rights in the creative industries. The project, hosted at the Department of Archeology, Conservation and History of the University of Oslo, examines the history of intellectual property rights, from the Paris Convention (1883) and Berne Convention (1886) until the present day. The project examines various kinds of intellectual properties through history: copyright, trademarks and branding, industrial design protection, patents, trade secrets, and other systems of knowledge protection.
Intellectual property systems are a part of the legal and normative framework in colonial and post-colonial regimes. Such systems were imported by the colonizing powers to the colonized countries. Papers in the conference will examine the implementation of intellectual property, and possible alternative systems. Were intellectual property systems readily adapted from the West to colonized countries? Which adaptations took place along the way? Were certain forms of legal pluralism relevant?
The conference will also seek to examine how did collective ownership play a part in such transfers of knowledge, and how such questions may have fostered the activity of international organizations. Intellectual property rights were not imported in an institutional vacuum. For this reason, the conference will also address the history of non-Western systems of protection and dissemination of knowledge, such as they can be designed and interpreted in customary law and norms.
Information:
For more information on the project, publications, and information about past events, please see Creative IPR CoG 818523 project website: https://www.hf.uio.no/iakh/english/research/projects/creative-intellectual-property-rights/
Programme
Creative IPR Conference 2
Intellectual Properties in Colonial and Postcolonial History
Place and dates: Africa Museum Tervueren, Belgium,
Thursday 25 and Friday 26 April 2024
Day 1: Thursday 25 April
09:00-09:20 Véronique Pouillard, with Julianne Rustad, Astrid Lello Hald, Welcome and introduction
09:20-09:40 Isabelle Gérard, Introduction, on behalf Museum’s Director Bart Ouvry
09:40-10:00 Placide Mumbembele Sanger, A qui appartient le patrimoine des communautés, source de production et transmission des savoirs?
Day 1, Session 1 : Intellectual properties, circulations of knowledge, and questions of sources
Chair : Placide Mumbembele Sanger
10:00-10:20 Matilda Ardvisson, Encountering Property and Proto-Property as a Cultural and Legal Form in Swedish Missionary Narratives of Pre- and Early Colonial Congo: Findings from The Mission Covenant Church of Sweden’s Congo Mission Archives, 1881–1908
10:20-10:40 Michael Birnhack and Raz Ashkenazi, Historical Trademark Data: Reconstructing Mandate Palestine’s Trademark Registry
10:40-11:00 Kay Dunn, Misappropriating Scottish traditional knowledge: empowering community ownership through IP rights
11:00-11:40 Discussion
11:40-13:00 Lunch break
Day 1, Session 2 : Trademarks, objects, and identities
Chair : Mala Loth
13:00-13:20 Anne Grosfilley, Wax print, a piece of fabric with multiple identities
13:20-13:40 Michael Birnhack, The Emergence of a Brand: Nabulsi Soap in Mandate Palestine
13:40-14:00 Aparajita Lath, Trademarking cotton production in India
14:20-15:00 Discussion
15:00-15:20 Coffee break
Day 1, Session 3 : Intellectual properties and aesthetics
Chair : Théodore Nganzi
15:20-15:40 Alexander Hartley, Colonial copyright and Romantic aesthetics
15:40-16:00 Anjali Vats, title TBD
16:00-16:20 Stina Teilmann-Lock, Presentation of ArtechLaw project research
16:20-17:00 Discussion
19:00 Dinner
Friday 26 April
09:30-10:00 Welcome to day 2 and coffee
Day 2, Session 4 : Music and copyright in colonial and post-colonial history
Chair : Subhadeep Chowdhury
10:00-10:20 Ulrike Luttenberger, The Senegalese copyright law revision and the transformation processes of its collective management organisation
10:20-10-40 Veit Erlmann, Copyright reform in South Africa: An anthropological perspective.
10:40-11:00 Véronique Pouillard, The Belgian Sabam in Colonial Congo : Managing the rights of musicians in an emerging cultural capital
11:00-11:40 Discussion
11:40-13:30 Lunch break
Day 2, Session 5 : Intellectual properties, development and technology
Chair : Malte Zill
13:30-13:50 Théodore Nganzi, Intellectual property in the times of platforms
13:50-14:10 Desmond Osaretin Oriakhogba, History of IPRs in Africa: Exploring the notions of legal transplantation, repatriation and reformism through Nigerian IP landscape
14:10-14:30 Devanshi Saxena & Esther van Zimmeren, The transforming face of terroir: unde venis geographical indications?
14:30-14:50 Felipe De Andrade, The governance of international transfer of technology: reflecting on contested concepts and historical claims for development
14:50-15:10 Caroline Ncube, Contemporary experiences of Intellectual Property in Africa
15:10-15:40 Discussion
15:40-16:00 Coffee break
16:00-16:45 Roundtable discussion and way forward : all participants
16:45 End of the workshop
19:00 Dinner
Information:
For more information on the project, publications, and information about past events, please see Creative IPR CoG 818523 project website: https://www.hf.uio.no/iakh/english/research/projects/creative-intellectual-property-rights/
