Interpreting Exceptions in Intellectual Property Law

German and European civil-law theory, and intellectual property law theory in particular, are being haunted by a ghost. One you, the reader, have surely come across. It is the postulate that exceptions should only be interpreted narrowly or according to their wording. This is often referred to as ‘singularia non sunt extendenda’, ‘exceptio stricti juris’ or ‘exceptio est strictissimae interpretationis’. For the sake of brevity, we shall refer to it here as the ‘singularia postulate’.

As anyone who knows him is aware, Professor Straus treats dogma disguised as incontestable truths with a healthy dose of skepticism. He always attempts to weigh up the interests of all parties involved in a particular case, taking all aspects thereof into account. We can therefore safely assume that he would critically assess the sin-gularia postulate, something this paper will also attempt to do. In this regard, we particularly aim to examine whether the singularia postulate finds justification in specific aspects of intellectual property law.