IP: the universal lubricant

Press coverage of IP law is generally pathological: it focuseson things that have gone wrong. Youngsters who have the brightidea of copying and file-sharing their favourite recordingsand movies end up in court, as do sellers of knock-off perfumesin street markets, as do fashion chains whose new ranges ofdresses or accessories bear a striking resemblance to the linespreviously unveiled on Paris catwalks by leading designers. Even when there isn't     

When Culture Means Gender: Issues of Cultural Defence in the English Courts

The use of cultural defence has been much discussed in the American context and has figured as one of the areas of concern in feminist assessments of multiculturalism. This paper examines two categories of cases from the English courts, those where cultural context has been seen as significant in interpreting the actions of female defendants, and those where 'culture' is invoked to explain severe acts of violence against women. It argues that cultural arguments become available to female defendants mainly when they conform to stereotypical images of the subservient non-Western wife. They have not, on the whole, been successfully employed by male defendants to mitigate crimes against women, though there are troubling exceptions. The larger problem is that mainstream culture itself promotes a gendered understanding of agency and responsibility, as when it perceives men as understandably incensed by the sexual behaviour of their women, or women as less responsible for their actions because of the influence of men. The conclusion is that the uses and abuses of cultural defence highlight issues that have wider provenance, for it is when cultural arguments resonate with mainstream conventions that they have proved most effective.     

A legitimate trespass

No editor can fail to be conscious of the burden placed uponhis shoulders when he begins to select the words that introducea new publication to an audience of unfamiliar readers. Howshould he justify a further trespass on their limited time andresources? At the launch of a new title such as JIPLP the editor can scarcelypoint to its self-evident     

Surveying support for child and youth political participation in Australia and New Zealand

Recent decades have witnessed increased empirical and policy interest in children’s citizenship, particularly since the ratification of the United Nations Declaration of Children’s Rights. However, support for children’s active citizenship is often hindered by the pervasiveness of discourses that characterise children as innocent, developing, and free from responsibility. Public and governmental decision-making largely excludes children’s consultation and contributions, often determined by age alone. To quantifiably assess the amount of public support for children’s political participation, we commissioned a Likert scale survey question on degrees of support for children and youth (across four age groups between 3 and 18 year olds) having the opportunity to influence government decisions, in the Australian and New Zealand 2016 versions of the International Social Survey Programme (ISSP). Analysis of responses to this question in relation to demographic survey data indicate variation in preferences for different age groups, and that age, gender, and political party preference of respondents were variables of significance for both nations. These variables point to potential predictors of attitudes toward political participation of children and youth which have relevance for policymakers and educators in relation to provision of programmes that will increase the engagement of children and youth in government decision-making.     

A benefit of one's own: older women's entitlement to Social Security retirement.

This article explores differences in Social Security eligibility and benefit levels for older men and women using survey data from the Health and Retirement Study combined with administrative records on actual work histories and Social Security rules. We are able to determine the fully insured status of those persons, how close they are to meeting eligibility criteria when they are not fully insured, and their prospects for benefits. Around three-quarters of older women nearing retirement today will be fully insured for Social Security old-age benefits on the basis of their own accounts, but the rest would need substantial extra employment to rise above the eligibility threshold. Further, two-thirds of older married women who are fully insured have sufficient lifetime earnings to translate into an age-65 primary insurance amount worth at least half their husband's, but the other one-third can expect no additional retirement benefit from contributing to Social Security late in life. Finally, most wives will not be able to improve their benefits by working more under current rules. These results have mixed implications regarding the potential impact of women's rising labor force attachment on eventual retirement benefits. Working more years could increase women's chances of becoming eligible for Social Security benefits, but that effect is likely to be small. Furthermore, even when women do become fully insured according to the rules, not many wives will receive a higher benefit at the margin. The reason is that married women still receive higher Social Security benefits as a spouse than they do on the basis of their own work record. In fact, the net benefit from Social Security due to additional work is negative once one takes into account the Social Security contributions the women paid while employed. Benefits paid to widows are even more likely to be based on the spouse's work history rather than on the woman's. Hence, the rising labor market attachment of women in the future may increase their eligibility for benefits but will produce only modest (and often negative) impacts on their old-age Social Security benefits under current rules.     

Consensus or compulsion?

When a person receives the same message often enough, from intelligentpeople whose opinions are not only valued but are handsomelypaid for, he is apt to believe it. Yet, acceptance within thecanon of generally accepted wisdom does not of itself qualifya widely held belief as being true. In the field of IP as elsewhere, opinions are often accepteduncritically on the trusting assumption that     

Office politics

The main focus of the IP student is on the substantive law:what can you patent, which acts infringe a trade mark, whenwill freedom of speech arguments trump a copyright-based actionfor an injunction, and so on. Once in practice, this focus broadensto take in wider interests, for example how to advise and guidea client without misappropriating its decision-making capacityor how to work within a team