The chilling effects of IP: Transparency rules and practice by public authorities and universities.

Abstract

Information is a crucial element of modern democratic societies and access to information and transparency an important issue for good governance. Such access is often safeguarded by rules on transparency in governance and freedom of information acts which relate to information held by public authorities. However, intellectual property rights held by third parties can often create an obstacle to access to information, and hence transparency. The authority holding a third-party document is then in a dilemma that it has to grant access to information while also safeguarding the commercial interests held by third parties whose IP rights may be undermined by the disclosure. This chapter wishes to illuminate this field of conflict between access to information and the protection of intellectual property rights. It is submitted that access is often of utmost importance for social enterprises and NGOs that are often spearheading campaigns for more transparency, especially within the field of environmental information. The chapter wishes to trace this conflict by analysing the rules of the Access Regulation, its practice regarding conflicting intellectual property rights and will provide a snapshot of how universities are affected by this conflict.