Bruce Lee’s Case: Intellectual Property vs. Free Access to Culture and Protection of Public Interest

Abstract

This article provides a comprehensive analysis of Bruce Lee’s case by presenting the intellectual property rights mechanisms in the People’s Republic of China. The aim of this paper is to bring attention to the trademark law as well as to shed new light on infringements of personality rights, in particular portrait rights, in trademarks. This begs the question as to what kind of legal action should be undertaken by Bruce Lee’s heiress to protect her rights. Moreover, the article touches upon the conflict between the public interest and trademarks and tries to answer the question how to balance private holders’ rights with the public interest. In order to provide some hypothetical scenarios, the study focuses primarily on Bruce Lee’s case background and the new amendments to trademark law in China, bringing the authors to final deliberations on Bruce Lee as part of modern culture belonging to mankind as a whole. Therefore, our research aims to find a solution to the challenging problem of reconciling intellectual property rights protection mechanisms with the common cultural heritage.