Study on Copyright Protection of Architectural Works in Real Estate

摘要

In real estate architectural works containing intangible property are regarded as a kind of intellectual property right throughout the world nowadays.Compared with other ordinary works,architectural works appear much more extraordinary in intellectual property due to their pragmatic,artistic,scientific and technological characteristics.Intellectual property conventions have put explicitly architectural works under the copyright law.According to idea / expression principal,copyright protection should extend to expression including architecture,architectural design as well as architectural drawing and not to ideas,procedures,methods of operation or mathematical concepts as such.Based on the analysis of the present real estate market,the paper discuss relevant cases at home and abroad and focuses on the following problems: (1) concept and characteristics of architectural works; (2) the condition of application of protection of architectural works; (3) the subject and object of architectural works copyright; (4) judging methods and principals of infringement of copyright relevant to architectural works; (5) tort liability and civil relief.Finally,the legal nature of renovating,reconstructing or extending existing buildings is studied and some legislation advices are proposed.In short copyright protection attempts to achieve benefit balance among architect,owner and user of architectural works so as to promote healthy development of real estate.