12 February 2009

The Anti-Intellectual Monopolies Trust

Apparently, there's something called the Intellectual Property Education Trust, a UK registered charity, with lots of dosh to give away:

"The Intellectual Property Education Trust proposes to make a closing award in the region of £25,000 for the promotion of education in the field of intellectual property, and seeks applications from interested institutions.

The Trust was established in 1995 with the object to advance education and promote research in the law and practice of Intellectual Property. The Trust proposes to make a final substantive award with its remaining funds. Institutions interested in making an application for the award should first notify the Trust's secretary by phone (01458 270 882) or email by 28 February 2009 with an expression of interest, and should submit a formal application by 17 April 2009.

So long as the purpose of the application is within the above object of the Trust, there are no other limitations on the nature of the application. Thus the award may be given, purely by way of example, for the preparation of courses or course materials, the establishment of courses, the award of bursaries to assist students to attend courses, or the preparation of material to educate the public at large.

Maybe it's time to set up an Anti-Intellectual Monopolies Trust: anyone want to fund it?

2 comments:

Peter Suber said...

Hi Glyn,

There's an interesting precedent for the anti-intellectual monopolies trust. Back in 2002, WIPO launched an essay contest to honor the best essay on the topic, "What does intellectual property mean to you in your daily life?"

Knowing that WIPO would not give the prize to any essay critical of intellectual monopolies, a group launched the WIPOUT counter-contest to honor the best essay answering the very same question. The WIPOUT domain name has now expired and all the links I formerly had to it are dead. But it was at www.wipout.net if anyone wants to research it at the Wayback Machine.

Glyn Moody said...

Interesting - many thanks for that.