An Overview of IPR Theses in 2011

(IPRinfo 2/2012)

Comparing the amount of IPR related theses nowadays to the amount ten years ago, it can clearly be seen that the number is growing. Professor Rainer Oesch from University of Helsinki says also that the plane of theses is higher and higher every year. Recently patent issues and brand themes have been quite popular when viewing all Finnish theses as a whole.

Patent theses have recently discussed restraining orders, a patent licensee’s status in right holder’s insolvency, patent infringement monitoring and compulsory licensing.

The relation between copyright and fundamental rights has been a subject of Elina Thorström’s thesis where she has discussed the relationship between copyright and freedom of expression within the EU law. Heikki Kemppinen’s thesis is about relationship of copyright to fundamental and human rights. The connective factor in Jori Jokinen’s and Heidi Laakso’s theses is originality. They deal with originality of a written work and originality as a precondition to protection of applied art.

A fairly large number of theses are about brand themes as well. There was a quite lively discussion about branding Finland as a country a while ago so Sari Klinga’s thesis about branding residential areas like Sipoonranta is an interesting continuation to that conversation. Laura Rönnholm from Turku School of Economics has studied how competitive advantage in mature B2B market can be created by branding. This has interested Mari Juntunen as well, who has written her thesis about corporate rebranding processes in small companies.

Not just jurisprudential research
It is bracing to notice that besides the theses from different faculties of law IPR related issues interests elsewhere too. From Aalto University School of Art comes a few of interesting trademark, brand and piracy relates theses like Yiying Wu’s ”Shanzhai products in everyday life: ethnographic fieldwork in China”.

Iiris Helander’s ”Aspects of translation of European patent applications from English to Finnish” is a thesis of English philology from the University of Helsinki. Ilmari Nokkonen’s thesis from University of Helsinki the faculty of social sciences is a refreshing view to copyright. He highlights some problematic points of copyright and its moral right in his thesis.

During 2011 there were also doctoral theses effectuated together with IPR University Center. Katja Weckström’s ”A Contextual Approach to Limits in EU Trade Mark Law” and Petra Sund-Norrgård’s ”Loyalty in Licensing Agreement” are both publications of IPR University Center. The first researcher to defend her doctoral thesis from IPR University Center INNOCENT Graduate School was Amina Agovic who wrote her doctoral thesis about patents, ethics and stem cell research.