Challenges of the Knowledge Society (May 2021)
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY IN TIMES OF COVID-19
Abstract
Since the beginning of year 2020, we are facing a pandemic of a coronavirus disease discovered in 2019 in China and rapidly spread worldwide. This pandemic affected many sectors of economic activities, such as the medical system, tourism, culture, education, work life. The life we knew before the pandemic may never return to us or it would be possible to have a better life after the pandemic is over because since the beginning of times, the human being tried to overcome his condition by creating all sort of things to have an easier and more comfortable life. All such creations were made due to his intellectual activity which later, with the development of the societies, it began to be recognized and protected by laws. Nowadays, the intellectual property is present in all economic sectors and we protect it through patents, designs, copyright, trademarks. Therefore, the intellectual property is nowadays more important than ever in order to try to end the pandemic because only the creative mind of human beings may find a way to eradicate this disease. The purpose of this article is to analyse the consequences of the pandemic into the intellectual property. We would try, among others, to see if the human being remained as creative as before the pandemic or if he taken the opportunity to become even more creative, to invest more in research and development and if the laws protecting the intellectual property would stay in front of the needed progress to overcome this pandemic.
