Semiotic, critical, and comparative approaches to (industrial) property rights

Law and Methods Seminar

Guest Speaker: Professor Camilla Crea.

If it is true that we purchase through symbols, it is equally true that we live through them.

Signs, especially verbal and visual ones, are ‘fictitious commodities’, subject to trademark rights, and essential to commerce and consumer markets. However, signs are also semiotic entities that belong to language and to social, political, and artistic communication. The expressive value of signs pertains to society, art, culture, and citizens—not to the market—and must remain inappropriable. 

Thus, intellectual property rights should not disproportionately impinge upon freedom of expression, a fundamental pillar of any democratic society. What legal strategies exist to safeguard the collective and social value of signs and mitigate the risks of a chilling effect? This question will be addressed using a mixed methodology that combines semiotic analysis with a critical, legal, and comparative approach.