The present collection of articles is devoted to The Legal Protection of Cultural Expressions and Indigenous Knowledge. This was the theme of the conference organized by the Institute's Center for Intellectual Property Law (CIER) in November 2001. Most of the papers which were contributed to that conference are presented in this issue. This book clarifies why the law comes into play with regard to the indicated theme. Indeed, it is a commonly shared belief all over the world that creation and innovation require legal protection in order to flourish, and thus both on a national and an international level. With regard to the conference theme, the issue had to be addressed whether legal protection under an intellectual property law regime would provide adequate legal recognition and respect to individuals and communities whose acts and products are difficult to reconcile with today's dominant Western legal concepts. In particular it was questioned whether traditional intellectual property law, either in an unaltered or in an adapted way, had a role to play here. It appeared that the first thing to do in that respect is to acknowledge that intellectual property law is not only about conferring property rights and allowing them to become weapons in the competition between entrepreneurs. This is because intellectual property law also has the function of fostering and furthering cultural and economic life in a broad perspective on behalf of society at large.
About the Author: From 1967 to October 2013 F.W. Grosheide was registered as a lawyer in Amsterdam. In 1974 he joined the University of Utrecht. In 1986 he obtained his PhD at the University of Utrecht with his thesis 'Auteursrecht op maat'. In 1988 he was appointed as a Professor of private law (civil law and intellectual property law, particularly copyright) at the same university. Grosheide is a specialist in (international) contract law and (international) copyright. His former and current involvement in specific areas of expertise and interest (apart from his national and international publications and his foreign guest lectureships) include his years as editor of leading trade journals such as Tijdschrift voor Burgerlijk Recht, contract law, intellectual property, information law/AMI and advertising law, as President of the Amsterdam Legal Society, his membership of the Ministerial Advisory Committee on copyright, memberships of the Association for copyright, the Association Littéraire et Artistique international and the Association for the Teaching and Research in Intellectual Property Law. At the moment he is as a consultant to lawyers associated with Versteeg-Wigman-Sprey in Amsterdam. He is a member of the Editorial Board of Queen Mary Journal of Intellectual Property and fulfils a number of administrative functions such as board member of the Karel Appel Foundation.