Intellectual Property Issues Strike…At the Heart of the Steelpan

Abstract

In Trinidad and Tobago intellectual property issues have plagued the steel pan since most of the development of the steelpan resides unrecorded within oral and traditional knowledge. There have been some contestations of over the ownership of the steelpan, its music and the processes of manufacturing and tuning with claimants from outside of the region filing patents on various aspects of the steelpan design and tuning processes.