PROTECTION OF IDEAS AS INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY: BACKGROUNDS, EXPERIENCE, PERSPECTIVES

Abstract

The paper considers the issues of potential legal protection of ideas as intellectual property. The author gives a description of the current situation and concludes that society is ripe with the need to highlight and recognise the creative work of the idea’s author, his contribution to the creation of the result of intellectual activity (or other object).

However, intellectual property law does not provide opportunities for the protection of ideas. None of its institutes proved to be suitable for (potential) legal protection of such an intangible object as an idea. At the same time, certain categories of ideas have long been successfully protected by law as intellectual property: architectural and similar projects and scripts of audiovisual works, the content of which, in essence, are ideas of objects (buildings and films) to be created.

Having considered the historical path of development of rights to classic types of intellectual property from ancient times to the emergence of the exclusive right, the article's author concludes that it is necessary to start building the future mechanism of legal protection of ideas not immediately with the introduction of monopoly rights to the content of the idea, but with the recognition of the work of the idea's author and his contribution to the creation of the object.