| The legal protection of “ideas” is a basic and critical issue that many countries’ creative industry has to face during its recent development. As one kind of burgeoning intellectual product, “ideas” has close relationship with works, trademarks and other traditional intellectual products. But “ideas” has its independent contents and value. In general, “ideas” should possess some novelty and concreteness, although the judgment criteria are different in different countries. In the U.S.A., which has the most abundant experiences about the legal protection of “ideas”, a variety of legal theories concerning its jurisprudence foundation have been developed during the long-term evolution, such as the property theory, the contract theory, the unjust enrichment theory and the confidence relationship theory, etc. These theories and the corresponding legal protection approaches have important value for many other countries to learn from them. In China, the theories and the judicial practice of the legal protection of “ideas” are in leading strings for the time being. In practice, people whose ideas have been infringed seek relief mainly by the intellectual property law (the copyright law and the anti-unfair-competition law). In some cases, the plaintiffs also seek relief through the contract law or the basic principles of civil law. But the number of the cases sued to the court is small, and there are few plaintiffs who win the case in the end, with the absence of the concrete rules in the present law and the lag of the legal research. This article finally holds that, in order to guarantee the healthy development of the creative industry, China should construct its legal protection system from three aspects. Firstly, in terms of its attribute, we should define “ideas” as a type of independent intellectual property. Secondly, in terms of its protection scope, the criteria of relative novelty and concreteness of ideas should be adhered to. Thirdly, in terms of its protection patterns, we should establish a systematic protection mechanism with the copyright law in dominance and the other laws in supplement. |
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