The Centre for Innovation Law & Policy Workshop series
presents
Haochen Sun
Assistant Professor of Law and Deputy Director at
the Law and Technology Centre, University of Hong Kong
Can Louis Vuitton Dance with HiPhone? Rethinking the Idea of Social Justice in Intellectual Property Law
Wednesday October 19th, 2011 from 12:30 pm to 2:00 pm
FLC, Flavelle House, 78 Queen’s Park Avenue,
Faculty of Law, University of Toronto
ABSTRACT
This article reconsiders the relationship between social justice and intellectual property through the lens of two conflicting cultural phenomena in China. The first cultural phenomenon, called "shanzhai" in China, legitimizes the provision of cheap and coll products such as the HiPhone. The second phenomenon is the rise of China as the largest luxury market in the world, unleashing an unprecedented increase in the consumer demand for luxury products such as Louis Vuitton. The shanzhai phenomenon has posed grave challenge to the IP protection that forms the foundation of the success of the luxury market in China.
By exploring the conflict between these two cultural phenomena, this article puts forward a new theory of social justice and intellectual property. The theory calls for intellectual property law to be redesigned to support the redistribution of three kinds of resources: benefits from the technological development, cultural power, and sources of innovation. By focusing on these three redistributive mandates, the theory has the value of reorientation the recent heated debate on social justice and intellectual property toward an inquiry about the resources that ought to be redistributed in intellectual property law. The article further considers the substantive and symbolic values of of the theory in promoting social justice through intellectual property law. With respect to its substantive value, it shows that the theory has the potential of overcoming the limitations of John Rawls' difference principle to deal with redistributive justice issues within the ambit of intellectual property law. Moreover, the theory has the symbolic value of setting workable goals for, and means of, mobilizing social movements to achieve cumulative eradication of injustice through intellectual property law.
A light lunch will be served.
No RSVP required.
