Safeguarding Intangible Assets provides strategies for preserving and enhancing a company's intangible assets to increase its profitability, competitiveness, and sustainability. Intangible assets such as patents, trademarks, copyrights, methodologies, and brand typically account for 80 percent of an organization's value and revenue. There are many forces making it more and more difficult to protect these assets, and securing them is a complex issue often overlooked by security and risk managers. Many security managers do not have adequate policies or procedures in place to protect these assets from compromise, infringement, and theft. Safeguarding Intangible Assets provides managers with the tools necessary for protecting these assets through effective and consistent oversight designed to preserve their control, use, and ownership. The book offers strategies for various types of business transactions, such as mergers and acquisitions, corporate-university R&D alliances, new product launches, early stage firms, and university-based spin-offs. - Offers step-by-step guidelines and best practices for establishing and maintaining an intangible asset protection program - Provides intangible asset risk management strategies that preserve the company's value, revenue, and competitive advantages - Shows how to collaboratively build a company culture that anticipates and recognizes intangible asset risks in everyday transactions and operations - Strengthens the interface with other departments' security practices, including IT, management, legal, accounting, finance, and risk management

Publisher Description

Bringing together key insights from expert legal and heritage academics and practitioners, this book explores the existence and safeguarding of contemporary forms of intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Providing a detailed analysis of the international legal frameworks relevant to ICH, the contributing authors then go on to challenge the pervasive view that heritage is about ‘old’ tangible objects by highlighting the existence, role and importance of contemporary forms of ICH to modern society.

Intellectual Property, Cultural Property and Intangible Cultural Heritage examines various notions of property in relation to intangible cultural heritage and discusses how these ideas are employed in rights discourses by governments and indigenous and local communities around the world. There is a strong historical dimension to the book’s exploration of the interconnection between intellectual and cultural property, intangible cultural heritage and indigenous rights discourses. UNESCO conventions, discussions in the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), the Convention on Biological Diversity and the recent emphasis on intangible cultural heritage have provided various discourses and models. The volume explores these developments, as well as recent cases of conflicts and cross-border disputes about heritage, using case studies from Asia, Europe and Australia to scrutinize the key issues. Intellectual Property, Cultural Property and Intangible Cultural Heritage will be essential reading for scholars and students engaged in the study of heritage, law, history, anthropology and cultural studies.

"The present UNWTO study provides the first comprehensive baseline research of the Organization on the links between tourism and intangible cultural heritage (ICH). Besides exploring major challenges, risks and opportunities for tourism development related to ICH, it further discusses practical steps for the elaboration, management and marketing of intangible cultural heritage-based tourism products."--Foreword.

This publication, prepared under the aegis of the WIPO Creative Heritage Project by two external consultants, Ms. Molly Torsen and Dr. Jane Anderson, offers legal information and compiles practical experiences on the management of intellectual property for cultural institutions whose collections comprise traditional cultural expressions. It seeks to respond directly to the needs of cultural institutions and indigenous and traditional communities dealing with the preservation, safeguarding and protection of cultural heritage.

Research and innovation in the life sciences is driving rapid growth in agriculture, biomedical science, information science and computing, energy, and other sectors of the U.S. economy. This economic activity, conceptually referred to as the bioeconomy, presents many opportunities to create jobs, improve the quality of life, and continue to drive economic growth. While the United States has been a leader in advancements in the biological sciences, other countries are also actively investing in and expanding their capabilities in this area. Maintaining competitiveness in the bioeconomy is key to maintaining the economic health and security of the United States and other nations. Safeguarding the Bioeconomy evaluates preexisting and potential approaches for assessing the value of the bioeconomy and identifies intangible assets not sufficiently captured or that are missing from U.S. assessments. This study considers strategies for safeguarding and sustaining the economic activity driven by research and innovation in the life sciences. It also presents ideas for horizon scanning mechanisms to identify new technologies, markets, and data sources that have the potential to drive future development of the bioeconomy.

What happens when UNESCO heritage conventions are ratified by a state? How do UNESCO’s global efforts interact with preexisting local, regional and state efforts to conserve or promote culture? What new institutions emerge to address the mandate? The contributors to this volume focus on the work of translation and interpretation that ensues once heritage conventions are ratified and implemented. With seventeen case studies from Europe, Africa, the Caribbean and China, the volume provides comparative evidence for the divergent heritage regimes generated in states that differ in history and political organization. The cases illustrate how UNESCO’s aspiration to honor and celebrate cultural diversity diversifies itself. The very effort to adopt a global heritage regime forces myriad adaptations to particular state and interstate modalities of building and managing heritage.

Archaeological research has long focused on studying tangible artifacts to build a picture of the cultures it examines. Equally important to understanding a culture, however, are the intangible elements that become part of its heritage. In 2003, UNESCO adopted a convention specifically to protect intangible heritage, including the following: oral traditions and expressions, including language; performing arts (such as traditional music, dance, and theater); social practices, rituals, and festive events; knowledge and practices concerning nature and the universe; and traditional craftsmanship. Since this convention was adopted, scholars and preservationists have struggled with how to best approach intangible heritage. This volume specifically focuses on embodied intangible heritage, or the human body as a vehicle for memory, movement, and sound. The contributors to this work examine ritual and artistic movement, theater, music, oral literature, as well as the role of the internet in cultural transmission. Globalization and particularly the internet, has a complex effect on the transmission of intangible heritage: while music, dance, and other expressions are now shared easily, the performances often lack context and may be shared with a group that does not fully understand what they are seeing or hearing. This volume draws on case studies from around the world to examine the problems and possibilities of implementing the new UNESCO convention. The findings in this volume will be vital to both professionals and academics in anthropology, archaeology, history, museum studies, architecture, and anyone else who deals with issues of cultural heritage and preservation.

This important Research Handbook offers a comprehensive analysis of the intersections between intellectual property (IP) and cultural heritage law. It explores and compares how both have evolved and sometimes converged over time, how they increased tremendously in significance, as well as in economic value, despite the fact that the former mainly pertains to the private sphere, whilst the latter is considered a ‘common good’.