Lauren M. Ingram Offers Insight on Mexico's Cultural Appropriation Ban in Bloomberg Law

04.19.22

In Bloomberg Law’s Intellectual Property Law section, Lauren M. Ingram offers perspective on Mexico’s legislative attempt to eliminate cultural appropriation and its impacts on the scope of intellectual property compliance and enforcement.

The article, “Mexico Testing Limits of Using Law to Bar Cultural Appropriation,” examines Mexico’s new ban on the unauthorized use of indigenous art and design which allows certain groups to pursue legal action against parties who copy or imitate cultural symbols or heritage elements without permission.

While the law does not explicitly define what qualifies as a cultural creation, Lauren asserts that profiting off traditional art, styles and symbols without any credit to the indigenous group or artist remains morally wrong.

“It doesn’t feel right because it’s sort of like a continued oppression, an economic oppression,” says Lauren.

She also recognizes the difficulty in enforcing intellectual property law for cross-cultural products, saying “there’s no elegant solution,” given these cases extend beyond the scope of the current mechanisms in place to prevent such matters.

Read the full article here.

Lauren’s feature in this article stems from her recent publication in The Trademark Reporter, for which she earned the 2021 Ladas Memorial Award.

Lauren is an associate in the firm’s Intellectual Property and Business Law Transactions practice groups. Utilizing experiences gained while completing her LL.M. in Intellectual Property Law from American University Washington College of Law and her J.D. from Indiana University Robert H. McKinney School of Law, she provides business resolutions to achieve clients’ best possible outcomes.