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ARTICLE · 13 JULY 2022

Can Memes Be Intellectual Property?

Dennemeyer & Associates S.A.
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The meme is now very well established as an element of pop culture, but it is also difficult to define succinctly.

LuxembourgIntellectual Property
Dennemeyer
Dennemeyer
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The meme is now very well established as an element of pop culture, but it is also difficult to define succinctly. These days, a meme can be anything from a silly dance in a YouTube video to the text from someone's viral tweet. Or it can be the sudden trend of millennials recording themselves singing centuries-old sea shanties.

Evolutionary biologist Richard Dawkins coined the term "meme" in 1976 to describe a behavior transmitted through culture in a manner analogous to genes in biology. Like genes, memes self-propagate until they become pervasive. From our perspective, the key question is whether or not the modern meme is or can become Intellectual Property (IP).

A brief history of the meme

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