World Patent Information 23 (2001) 319
www.elsevier.com/locate/worpatin
Book review
Intellectual Property Rights: Unleashing the Knowledge
Economy
Prabuddha Ganguli; Tata McGraw-Hill, 1 New Delhi,
2001, ISBN 0-07-463860-2. 506 pages. US$ 19.50
The author's previous book ``Gearing Up for Patents:
The Indian Scenario'' was reviewed in this journal. 2 It
was written speci®cally from the Indian perspective, but
nevertheless was very broad ranging. In his latest book,
Dr Ganguli sets out his starting point as the TRIPs
agreement. He states that he has used this as ``the
backbone and elaborated on basic aspects of intellectual
property rights with special emphasis on patents''. The
book has been structured to provide a business per-
spective of particular value to policy makers and those
with a legal interest in, or need for, IPR.
He addresses the issues of the implications in this ®eld
of the burgeoning global knowledge economy, such as
achieving a proper balance between reasonable and ef-
fective protection for IPR and the desire for freedom of
access for all, and between the needs and aspirations of
developed and developing countries. A ¯avour of the
scope and depth of the book is provided by the subject
matter of the main chapters: TRIPs, the IPR Tool Kit,
1
www.tatamcgrawhill.com.
2
Blackman M. Book review. World Patent Inf 1998;20:219.
PII: S 0 1 7 2 - 2 1 9 0 ( 0 1 ) 0 0 0 3 1 - X
the nitty-gritty of patents, IPR and living species and
traditional knowledge, IPR enforcement, exhaustion
principle and parallel imports, patent information ex-
ploitation, patents in the pharmaceutical and software
industries, and `challenges ahead'.
In addition to broad perspectives, these issues are il-
luminated more speci®cally by reference to numerous
case studies and summaries of legal decisions, a compi-
lation by Graham Dueld of selected treatises on IPR,
and a listing of the TRIPs Articles related to enforce-
ment.
From his many years' experience in IPR, recently at
Hindustan Lever, the author has provided an interest-
ing, extensive and in-depth analysis.
For a book of this type and size (just over 500 pages)
it is very reasonably priced (US$ 19.50). Not surpris-
ingly, at this price the printing quality is modest but
quite clear. Good value.
Michael Blackman
45, Kenwood Drive, Beckenham
Kent BR3 6QY, UK
E-mail address: mblackwpi@aol.com