More books for review

Here's a further batch of books received by the Journal of Intellectual Property Law & Practice for review.  If you would like to review one of these titles, please email Sarah Harris of Oxford University Press at sarah.harris@oup.com and let her know, by not later than close of play on Monday 2 February.  If you are not already known to the journal, do let us know why you think you are particularly qualified to review the book. 

The books on offer are as follows:

Harmonising Copyright Law and Dealing with Dissonance
Authors: Sheldon Halpern and Phillip Johnson 
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

This insightful study explores the constitutional, institutional, and cultural barriers to harmonisation of the copyright laws of the United States and the European Union. It considers these matters in the real world transnational environment in which copyright law operates and suggests that the reality transcends the differences, offering a framework for meaningful harmonisation.

The authors examine in detail and offer a critique of the sporadic and historic attempts at one or another form of harmonisation, via treaty and otherwise, from the creation of a minimal standards regime to the proliferation of substantive treaties. They similarly examine the respective competencies of the US and the EU to adopt a transnational regime, and propose a workable framework consistent with these competencies.

Further information about this title can be obtained from the book's web page here

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Information Environmentalism: A Governance Framework for Intellectual Property Rights
Author: Robert Cunningham
Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

Information Environmentalism applies four environmental analytical frameworks to the information commons. The book neatly captures the metaphorical relationship between the physical environment and the information environment by alluding to the environmental philosophy of ‘social ecology’ and the emergent informational discourse of ‘cultural environmentalism’. Robert Cunningham builds upon the proposition that the success of the environmental movement can be traced directly to these four analytical frameworks. He develops, refines and integrates the theoretical foundations of ‘cultural environmentalism’ and applies them to the digital age, in which the regulation of information will have a critical impact upon the manner in which human beings conduct their lives, and the manner in which society functions more generally.

Further information about this title can be obtained from the book's web page here

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Medical Monopoly 
Author: Joseph Gabriel
Publisher: Chicago University Press 

During much of the nineteenth century, physicians and pharmacists alike considered medical patenting and the use of trademarks by drug manufacturers unethical forms of monopoly; physicians who prescribed patented drugs could be, and were, ostracized from the medical community. In the decades following the Civil War, however, complex changes in patent and trademark law intersected with the changing sensibilities of both physicians and pharmacists to make intellectual property rights in drug manufacturing scientifically and ethically legitimate. By World War I, patented and trademarked drugs had become essential to the practice of good medicine, aiding in the rise of the American pharmaceutical industry and forever altering the course of medicine.

Further information about this title can be obtained from the book's web page here

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The Copyright Wars: Three Centuries of Trans-Atlantic Battle
Author: Peter Baldwin
Publisher: Princeton University Press

Peter Baldwin explains why the copyright wars have always been driven by a fundamental tension. Should copyright assure authors and rights holders lasting claims, much like conventional property rights, as in Continental Europe? Or should copyright be primarily concerned with giving consumers cheap and easy access to a shared culture, as in Britain and America? The Copyright Wars describes how the Continental approach triumphed, dramatically increasing the claims of rights holders. The book also tells the widely forgotten story of how America went from being a leading copyright opponent and pirate in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries to become the world’s intellectual property policeman in the late twentieth. As it became a net cultural exporter and its content industries saw their advantage in the Continental ideology of strong authors’ rights, the United States reversed position on copyright, weakening its commitment to the ideal of universal enlightenment—a history that reveals that today’s open-access advocates are heirs of a venerable American tradition.

Further information about this title can be obtained from the book's web page here