Publication of the week: Dr Patricia Covarrubia

26 April 2017

Covarrubia, P. & L. Albani, “Cultural expressions: the intersection of culture and intellectual creations – Fado as a case study”, (2017) Intellectual Property Quarterly 1, 29-51

The inscription in 2011 of Fado, a Portuguese music genre, on the Representative List of Intangible Cultural Heritage (ICH) of Humanity has given to it a worldwide recognition as a cultural expression. This brings to attention what role international and domestic laws have in the safeguarding and protection of ICHs. Examining the protection of Fado and attempting to explain the sentiment behind cultural materialisation, a generalisation from it is made bringing a debate about the value of ICH. The importance of studying Fado is not mainly about its ethnomusicology but its manifestation as part of human expression and relevance and importance of transmitting, protecting and living cultural heritage.

The full text of the article is available via Westlaw.

Dr Patricia Covarrubia is Senior Lecturer in Law at The University of Buckingham and manager / blogger in IP Tango (Intellectual Property weblog – Latin America). Dr Covarrubia is also an IP consultant for the Latin American IPR SME Helpdesk, a project co-founded by the EU. Her research interests include geographical indications and indications of origin, compulsory licences in the pharmaceutical industry, domain names, and the protection of traditional knowledge. She is the author of Chemical Sense Marks: Frequent concerns when applying for trade mark registration at the OHIM (Saarbrücken: VDM Publishing, 2011).