Insights into IP Agreement Contracts

Culture and natural heritage may not be the most obvious of bedfellows, but this is less clear when you look at the heritage recorded in our intellectual property laws – IPR. This orientation undoubtedly informs The Heritage Educational Portal’s current article “Insights into IP Agreement Contracts”, for, in its exploration of how IPR protects the intangible as well as other heritage collections, the depth of cultural and heritage dimensions in the IPR phenomenon is documented. This aspect of IPR has been repeatedly addressed by The Heritage Educational Portal as a way of spotlighting how heritage issues are bound up with legal dimensions and, more to the point, how education about heritage can be connected with knowledge about the legal frameworks in which it also may be embedded.

The insights in this article address various aspects of what a comprehensive approach to IP agreements is and may mean for objects and collections of heritage. The meaning and relevance of the subject matter already discussed in the Heritage Portal IPR series, which includes articles on IP elements such as patents, copyright, trademarks and trading names, industrial designs and the protection of trade secrets, are reiterated in Mr. Waisberg’s commentary. This relevant insight into Intellectual Property rights and its laws helps the public in Australia to better understand what this legal perspective means for cultural heritage, including natural heritage in Australia – supported by legal mechanisms in the Australian taxation system. It is generally stated that the legal aspects of IPR are designed to protect and promote two important pillars of human society – namely innovation and creativity.

In response to the need for the capacity to appropriate heritage to innovation and creativity, The Heritage Educational Portal assists in making available knowledge about the legal strategies that can protect heritage for purposes of innovation and creativity. By exploring astounding knowledge about what cultural heritage is and what its boundaries are, insiders learn that the protection of cultural heritage should not only be a concern of cultural heritage operators or those for whom cultural heritage is a significant and professional aspect of their lives, but should also be a concern of the broader general public.

Time constraints on people living in the modern world mean that most simply do not have time to read through long cultural heritage documents, such as textbooks or even heritage-related papers. Training organisations, education providers and universities, have found that many university students have had a gap in their background knowledge concerning cultural heritage and the social, cultural and scientific importance of cultural heritage material.

By using digital media in delivering this knowledge, the capacity of knowledge transfer is maximised. The understanding of the role of IPR, including comprehensive approach to IP agreements in the context of IP protection, is now much more accessible, as is the ability of operators and the general public to explore the legal dimensions that may be relevant to what is essentially, an exercise in protecting cultural heritage in all its forms.

The Heritage Educational Portal promotes cultural heritage in all its forms, and the site’s excursion into IPR also provides insight into how culturally relevant knowledge may be used. The promotion of recognition of the aspects of heritage protection and training in what the legal instruments are and what they mean, makes important legal and practical knowledge much more accessible for those seeking to learn about the relationship between incoheto legal dimensions and cultural heritage.

It is this link between heritage education and legal knowledge about heritage that assists delegates of The Heritage Educational Portal to move from knowing basic intellectual property law, to understanding the interaction between heritage education, heritage assets and the preservation of cultural heritage.