The Intellectual Property Protection Of Intangible Cultural Heritage

"Intangible cultural heritage" was explicitly defined in Convention for the Safeguarding of the Intangible Cultural Heritage, published by UNESCO in2003. Then the protection of intangible cultural was on the agenda, and this had become a major international cultural strategy. China has become the country with the most intangible cultural heritage in the world since2006. This is not only a symbol of national cohesion, but also driving force for China to participate in international competition and to achieve coordinated, sustainable development of its social economic and cultural development. To protect intangible cultural heritage, promote the national culture development and prosperity is the core of the intangible cultural heritage protection work, in addition, it is a Arduous task, which calls for the joint efforts of society. But with the development of economic globalization, the gap between economic development and cultural protection emerges. The society focuses on the economic value of intangible cultural heritage rather than its cultural value. Many intangible cultural heritages was destroyed and stolen, some missing. The status quo of intangible cultural heritages is worrisome.In2011, with the enactment of Intangible Cultural Heritage Law, our country began systematic protection of the intangible cultural heritage. However, the protection emphasizes on administrative aspect, which is less effective comparing to the intellectual property protection in some other countries. Therefore, to build a intellectual property protection system of intangible cultural heritage is imminent. This essay studies intellectual property protection of intangible cultural heritage from three aspects:the first part mainly introduces the concept and characteristics of the intangible cultural heritage. The characteristics will be summed up from subject, object and content. And also analyzes the necessity and feasibility of the protection of intellectual property rights, because the intellectual property protection of intangible cultural heritage is the common need of cultural value and economic value, which provides a guarantee for the protection of human rights. Although a comprehensive administrative protection has been provided through legislation, we cannot ignore the nature of the intangible cultural heritage and the experience collected in practice. All these indicate that it is feasible to protect intangible cultural heritage in intellectual property and that can provide more comprehensive legislative protection on intangible cultural heritage. The second part is focus on situation of foreign intellectual property protection of intangible cultural heritage. Through the research on characteristics and trend of the foreign legislation summarize three modes of intellectual property protection of intangible cultural heritage including direct protection of intellectual property rights, special protection of intellectual property rights and the indirect protection. According to the former study, the third part puts up suggestions on building of intellectual property protection of China’s intangible cultural heritage to establish a specialized legal system.