The digital public domain: relevance and regulation

After clarifying the notion and different areas of the (digital) ‘public domain’, the paper engages in discussing literature on its relevance for society, in general, and economic innovation, in particular. The effectiveness of the utilization of these abstract potentials, however, depends on the respective public domain regulation. In this context, the paper distinguishes different regulatory modes and arenas in both copyright and patent law, thereby focusing private regulatory initiatives, such as Creative Commons or Biological Open Source. In the last section, the paper presents open research questions and makes some preliminary suggestions for potential research strategies.