Abstract
First, intellectual and industrial property is property--extremely valuable property at that. However, this is not a subject that gets more than passing attention in many curricula, and none in most. Consequently, few lawyers, aside from the specialists, know much about it. Moreover, unlike most areas of legal specialization, such as tax, labor, and anti-trust law, the basic principles of which are known to most general practitioners, if a generalist knows anything about literary or industrial property, it is apt to be wrong. Furthermore, because clients tend to approach generalists first, substantial and incurable injury may result from a generalist's mistaken notions of literary and industrial property law. Avoiding such injury is one of the objectives of this article. Second, most of the mystique surrounding literary and industrial property is wholly unjustified. While its acquisition may sometimes be more complicated than the acquisition of some other kinds of property, intellectual and industrial property can generally be transferred and protected like other property. Most of the mystique in this area dissolves with the acquisition of a working vocabulary; such a vocabulary can be sot forth in short order. Third and finally, it is hoped that this article can be used to integrate the subject of literary and industrial property into more widely known areas of law.
Publication Date
1-1-1974
Journal Title
West Virginia Law Review
Document Type
Article
Recommended Citation
Thomas G. Field, Jr., "Intellectual and Industrial Property in a Nutshell," 77 W. Va. L. Rev. 525 (1974).
Additional Information
This article was also made available as Paper 14 in the Pierce Law Faculty Scholarship Series by NELLCO (nellco.org).
Note that in the article's original publication by the West Virginia Law Review, the author's last name is incorrectly listed as "Fields."