INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY AS THE BASIS FOR THE DEVELOPMENT OF THE DIGITAL ECONOMY

Abstract

The transition from an economy based on labor-intensive investments to a knowledge and innovation-driven economy has created a more competitive society. However, this transformation of the economy and society is not possible without developed intellectual property. It is crucial for intellectual property rights to keep pace with technological developments, which is a challenging task.

Today, authors and holders of copyright and related rights increasingly use so-called non-fungible tokens (NFTs) as ownership certificates for virtual assets to monetize their intellectual creations. An NFT is called non-fungible because it is unique; there are no two identical tokens. NFTs can be understood as digital "watermarks" that can indisputably establish the authenticity of a digital file – be it an image, video clip, audio file, or cryptocurrency. In fact, any computer-generated file can be signed with an NFT token.

Considering that the Law on Digital Assets has been applied in Serbia since 2021, changes to intellectual property rules are necessary to regulate the relationship between three categories of individuals: the author of the original work (who owns intellectual property rights over the work), the author of the NFT (the one who mints the token), and the owner of the NFT (the one who purchases the token). Digital property has been a relevant topic in Serbia for years, and it is likely to become even more significant now that a legal framework has been adopted to facilitate its further application and development.