Claudy Op Den Kamp: She has some great quotes in the chapter. So for instance: "When we think of technology, we think of machines and not underwear." So I love that. We highlight many men in the book, right? In that golden age of invention, the famous inventors were all men. Thomas Edison, Samuel Morse... but she describes that women had this intimate knowledge of wearing and perhaps also washing their corsets, so over time, they came up with great improvements to their corsets, which then in turn, they ended up patenting.
Lise McLeod: In connection to the 2023 World IP Day theme on women and intellectual property. I thought that it would be fun to pull a popular book from our shelves that highlights women's innovation and creativity. The objects discussed in the following conversation reflect their connection to patents, trademarks, or copyright, and to women's history. The objects' stories invite us to reflect on the history of our IP laws, how they've evolved, and most importantly, what do they mean to our lives now.
Hello, Page Points listeners. Hoping you're doing well today. I'm doing well because I'm currently joined by Claudy Op den Kamp, one of the editors of such a fun book called 'A History of Intellectual Property in 50 Objects'. This book is fondly referred to in the WIPO Knowledge Center as the '50 objects book', which I don't even bother shelving. I keep a print copy on my desk so that people can pop by and have a little peek at it and leaf through the pages.
I'd like to say Welcome, Claudy.
Claudy Op Den Kamp: Thank you. That is so lovely to hear and lovely to be here.
Lise McLeod: For this particular title, we have a print copy as well as a digital copy. I'd like to find out, first of all, who is the intended audience and how do you suggest that they consume the book's content?
Claudy Op Den Kamp: Yeah, good question. I've actually personally never seen the e-version, so I should get on that. I actually think that my answer over time has changed a little bit to this question because now I would say that this book is for everyone who's interested in the way that they consume the world around them, whereas maybe three, four years ago, I would've said something more specific to IP.
I think that people should know about intellectual property because it touches their lives in ways that are unexpected to them. So what I use with my students a lot is, you know, when you buy a Starbucks coffee, you might not realize that, knowing for certain that your buying a Starbucks coffee is actually regulated by IP. And the same is true for the medication that you might be taking and the food that you eat, of course, the films that you watch, or the furniture with which you decorate your house, and IP has this certain everydayness to it that it might actually be quite surprising to people.
And so I think that the 50 objects are so diverse, these specific 50 that I think that everyone can find, at least a few that they like. And the book translates complex ideas into relatively lay language, so it's also an easy way in for those who are relatively new to the topic. And hopefully it will also appeal to those, you know, who know a lot more about it and those that are well versed in the topic.
Lise McLeod: So how did you narrow it down to just 50 objects?
Claudy Op Den Kamp: Yeah, very good question. The underlying idea was fully formed when I came to the project. So my co-editor, Dan Hunter, had already thought of the idea, but I believe that at the time it was more like a history of IP in an X amount of objects, so it got to that stage.
And the book, obviously, is inspired by the 2010 Podcast by Neil McGregor of the British Museum, and that's called ‘A History of the World in a Hundred Objects'. So numerous rifts on this trope have now emerged, right? We have seen very, very fun versions of it, and our book relies on the recognition of that trope. And then we started talking about it, and we realized that approximately 2000 words or so per entry, they hit a certain sweet spot in telling the three things that we wanted every entry to address.
So it had to have an object. Then the second layer was the intellectual property story of that object, and then three, the sort of further wider social repercussions of that context. And taken all that together, I think we pretty quickly settled on 50 objects. I don't seem to remember whether we ever considered a different amount.
50 would make a book that was robust. But also varied enough, but not too thin and not too overwhelming. You know, in the final book, if you have it on your desk, it weighs four pounds. So it's already quite a hefty tome.
Lise McLeod: It's like a coffee table book because there's not just the rich content, but also the photographs and the images that you've included are just so lovely to behold. They really help illuminate each of the objects.
The 2023 World IP Day theme is about women, creativity and innovation. There are a number of key objects in the book that really speak to that theme. I was wondering if you would mind us touching on those in particular, because we obviously can't cover all 50 objects today.
The first object that caught my eye and that everyone knows is the Mona Lisa. Could you talk us through the Mona Lisa as an object of IP? She's arguably one of the most well-known cultural artifacts.
Claudy Op Den Kamp: Yes. I think this entry is just fabulous, for several reasons, and thank you for picking that one out. I think the, the Mona Lisa entry is a great example of where the author and the entry are actually intrinsically linked. And this is something that we were trying to do throughout as editors, right? To approach people for their specialisms. So we knew that we wanted entries that focus on the idea of the public domain, and my colleague Dinusha Mendis organized the 3D printing event here at Bournemouth, and Andrea Wallace, who wrote this Mona Lisa entry, presented here and I was immediately a fan.
She's just incredible and makes complicated things sound very clear and very accessible as she had then just done in her 'Display At Your Own Risk' project. And so we thought it would be interesting if one of the public domain paintings at the heart of that project would become one of the entries for the book. I think this entry really collates all sorts of interesting strings tied to the public domain.
So starting with the underlying material that was never actually protected, the painting moved physically from Italy to France where it hung in private, in Napoleon's bedroom, for instance. It then went on to the Louvre, where famously it was stolen. It is now back in the Louvre where it is behind safety glass, but it is also behind the Louvre's quite strict photography policy. And Andrea charts that journey of the painting, which indeed is set to be the most reproduced artwork in the world.
And I would like to urge listeners to particularly take a look at the magnificent graph that she compiled for the entry. In fact, this entry is the only entry that is double in length to all the others due to that graph, and they chart all the reproductions that Andrea has been able to locate and the copyright claims attached to those, it is so beautiful.
Andrea is now an associate professor at the Law School of the University of Exeter, and she does all sorts of amazing research on surrogate IP rights in the cultural sector. And surrogacy is this term that she has come up with. To describe the role of copyright during the digitization of cultural heritage work.
So I think it's a really important entry. It does not only look at the commercializing of reproductions, of artworks that are in the public domain, but it also speaks to how we attempt to generate, as well as perhaps fail to generate, knowledge from the public domain.
Lise McLeod: Thank you. The next object on my list is the clothing item, the corset. This object is connected to the intellectual property right, the patent. Which isn't an obvious connection.
Claudy Op Den Kamp: Yes. So this entry is written by Kara Swanson, who is a professor at Northeastern University School of Law. And I would say that this one is exactly the right entry for the book. Not only written fabulously, this entry came in fully formed, I actually believe we changed not one word in this, it was so beautiful, but it also speaks to all those layers I just mentioned, right? The three things we try to do in every entry.
So there's the object, the corset. And then there is the IP story with this very genderized idea of the law. And then there is this further rippling out of all of those aspects into a wider social story.
I think Kara beautifully describes, you know, wearing a corset influenced how women behaved physically, and it restricted them in many different ways and not in the least in their sexuality. And it protected this very chaste image. She has some great quotes in the chapter. So for instance, "When we think of technology, we think of machines and not underwear". So I love that. We highlight many men in the book, right? In that golden age of invention, the famous inventors were all men. Thomas Edison, Samuel Morse... but she describes that women had this intimate knowledge of wearing, and perhaps also washing their corsets, so over time, they came up with great improvements to their corsets, which then in turn, they ended up patenting.
The idea of the law's genderized character is I think nicely echoed in some of the other entries as well. So Jessica Lake's chapter on the Kodak camera, for instance. So she describes how the copyright owners were the men taking their photographs, where the very visible sitters were the women who could not own the copyright.
And then of course, the idea that IP was used to protect that chaste image of a woman is of course, echoed in the Barbie entry.
Lise McLeod: Yes, we will definitely be speaking about Barbie, but before we get to her, can we first take a peek at Coco Chanel and the breadth of her work in connection to trademarks?
Claudy Op Den Kamp: Yeah, so luxury items and trademarks were some of the themes that we knew we absolutely wanted to address in the book, and we found Jeannie Suk Gerson, who's professor of law at Harvard Law School, willing to write this entry on the Chanel 2.55 bag. The bag is named that for its release date in February 1955, which I always think is a nice thing to add.
We had a couple of other ideas for trademarks such as Chewy Vuitton, the dog toys, or a chocolate shape mark. But in the end, the Chanel 2.55 was the ultimate classic. It is unique in that the bag is both this highly coveted luxury item, but simultaneously one of the most copied ones, right? So Coco Chanel herself saw imitation as the highest form of flattery, but of course, the current house of Chanel doesn't see it that way.
This entry also has a lot of connections to some of the other entries. So for instance, the Chanel entry touches on this idea of trademark genericide. So brands that have morphed into their products, and one of the images in the chapter for instance is an ad in which Chanel tells the fashion industry how they prefer their trademarks to be used, which is, of course, an attempt to prevent their products from becoming generic.
And in that sense, the entry is, for instance, linked to the chapter on the escalator, which was specifically designed as an entry on trademark genericide. But that entry is also about the revolutionary changes in shopping that the invention of the escalator brought. And so whether unique and luxurious, or highly generic, these objects have deeply impacted our lives and experience which again speaks to that every dayness of IP, right? That we mentioned at the beginning.
But speaking to the theme of women in IP, I hope that your listeners are interested in a woman-related anecdote when it comes to this entry. So at the end of 2021, I was invited to the EUIPO in Alicante, where the conference of the European IP Prosecutors’ Network was held. They were working on a handbook and they were interested in the structure of other IP book projects.
So I was invited to present this book there and one of the attending women, and there were only five women in total, and she specializes in counterfeit luxury goods, and I had the slide of this entry up for maybe 20 seconds, right? So the opening page of the Chanel chapter, and she immediately said 'That is not a 2.55. Your opening image is not an image of a 2.55.' And so I was so astonished and so impressed. The amount of eyes that have stared at this chapter in the making of the book, right? The author, we as editors, some four people of the Chanel legal team. No one had seen this. Getty had listed it incorrectly as well as an image, and here was this woman who took one look at it and said, that is the wrong bag.
And so I am really glad that I have learned something over time. I now know that the original Chanel 2.55 bag can be identified by the rectangle locket, which is called the Mademoiselle Locket. So yeah, the stories keep continuing.
Lise McLeod: That's a fabulous story. And of course it's called the Mademoiselle Locket. So now on to Barbie please. Barbie and Mattel, it's actually one of the objects that covers several IP rights, correct?
Claudy Op Den Kamp: Well, first of all, I kind of have to say that the Barbie doll entry was the very first chapter that was done, right? And it was the basis for the book proposal to Cambridge University Press. So it's the chapter of my co-editor, Dan Hunter, or one of his chapters.
And this chapter was sort of prepared for Cambridge to illustrate that this book could be really fun and light, but also lavishly illustrated and written, and what we have come to term this informed but accessible tone and style. So it was really important, you know that that chapter set the tone for the whole book.
What I think is really fun about the chapter and the story in general is that these dolls, both Barbie and Ken, came from the imagination of Ruth Handler, right? So the lady who is credited with their invention, and believe it or not, she had children called Barbara and Kenneth. So, I mean, that is just really fun to me.
Barbie was based on another doll. She was called Lily. Which Ruth Handler saw in a window shop when she was on vacation in Switzerland. And then Mattel, as you said, is a great example of a company using the whole spectrum of IP regimes right, to control their property. So, patents, trademarks and copyrights.
So for instance, the way that Barbie stands up was patented, right? She's tiptoed and there's like a special joint in her waist. And then the books and the comics and the movies, they were all copyrighted. And then of course the trademarks, the Barbie Dreamhouse, the Barbie Mobile, that very distinctive pink color, all trademarks.
But I think what the chapter really does is show the company's litigation strategy to say, go after artists that have tried to subvert that Barbie image. So Todd Haynes, the filmmaker, used Barbies in Superstar, which was his portrayal of Karen Carpenter, and then of course Tom Foresight, who's the photographer who made that Food Chain Barbie series, which famously was deemed fair use.
And I think what the entry shows so well is that the story of IP is and can be a story of power and control, right? So we see similar things with entries and companies like Disney or Lego. Where they use the whole spectrum of IP available to them, and whether it is the image of a chaste doll or say a wholesome mouse, these strategies are used to then tightly control their products.
I also think that this chapter, maybe that's my own use of it, but it shows a particular use of the book as well, so I use it in teaching for my own students. Barbie is such a ubiquitous object and everybody knows about it, so for me, it's a great jumping off point to talk to them about other things, and people in general have told me that this is how they are using the book.
So the chapters provide this tangible opening into a subject which can then be taken to a different place. And I think also, very topical again, I am personally looking forward very much to the upcoming Barbie movie, premiering this July. So Greta Gerwig and Noah Baumbach's interpretation of Barbie in their new film. And I truly wonder what they have done with the story. Some early stills suggests that Margot Robbie, who plays Barbie, is seen as that early Lily inspired doll with that widow’s peak in her hair and that black and white striped bathing suit.
And then to pick up the theme of women in IP, Greta Gerwig made her interpretation of little women a few years ago very much about female empowerment through the use of copyright. She had this magnificent scene of Joe March discussing her copyright with her publisher at the end of the film. I don't know if you've seen it, and so I wonder if, I don't know if they're gonna question Barbie's origins in a similar way. I'm just looking forward to it coming out in July.
Lise McLeod: It'll be interesting to see how they handle that. Well, Claudy, I think you've given our listeners a good taste of some of the objects that they can find in the book.
Do you have any last comments that you'd like to add before we close? And I'd like to ask how can our listeners find more about you and what you're working on now?
Claudy Op Den Kamp: Well, I am in luck that if you Google my name, I seem to be the only person with my name, so you immediately find my university page. I'd like to thank you and WIPO for the opportunity. I think it's a fabulous theme this year, women in IP and Creativity and Innovation and thank you for the opportunity.
Lise McLeod: It's been a pleasure. I will have your words in my mind the next time I read about each of those objects in the book.
Claudy Op Den Kamp: Great. I'm glad.
Lise McLeod: Take care and thank you.
Claudy Op Den Kamp: You too. Bye.
Lise McLeod: I hope that you've enjoyed my conversation with Claudy covering some of the women related objects from the 50 featured in the book. As mentioned, we have a couple of copies and formats of the book in our Knowledge Repository. You can learn more about our annual World IP Day campaign via the WIPO website. Be sure to check out all that's going on.
Until the next time and the next Page Points. Bye for now.