The Guardianship of copyright over the title of a work

Abstract

In the Units Specialized in Punishable Acts against Intellectual Property, complaints are received about plagiarism of works, matter of copyright. In the present work, the existing mechanisms for the resolution of cases of complaints about copyright will be exposed and that, for methodological reasons, will focus on those in relation to the title of the works, which is considered useful for fiscal work. In this context, the question to be answered in this article is the following: Is the title of a work legally protected as such by copyright? To contextualize the issue that concerns us, we start from the question about what is meant by Intellectual Property? WIPO defines it as “every creation of the human intellect”. It divides into two branches; on the one hand, Copyright and Related Rights and, on the other hand, Trademark Law and Industrial Property Law. It should be noted that in terms of intellectual property, what is protected is the form of expression of the idea, not the idea itself, since this is prescribed by art. 7 of Law No. 1328/1998 on Copyright and Related Rights.