Whether you celebrate it or not, Halloween provides a
great occasion to reflect on another type of human creativity:
folklore, also called 'Traditional Knowledge' in legal
jargon. Volha Parfenchyk explores intellectual property and
traditional knowledge and sets out the protection mechanisms that
apply.
Although the Halloween holiday has been certainly monetised
(just look at the number of Halloween-related patents), at the core of the
holiday lies a type of human creation that has less obvious
relationships with marketing, capitalism and the intellectual
property (IP) rights regime that enables them.
The origins of Halloween
The origins of Halloween itself lie in the Celtic-Christian
traditions of remembering the dead, with the roots of many modern
attributes of this holiday to be found in old legends and customs.
The familiar vampire theme, for instance, links back to one of the
most well-known stories about vampires, Bram Stocker's Dracula,
which is itself
