Intellectual property objects acquiring protection in the 21st century

Introduction: efficient legal protection of intellectual outputs is essential for the dynamic development of modern society. The list of intellectual property objects is not intended to be exhaustive, separate outputs lose their relevance and become excluded from the list of protected objects, while new ones, on the contrary, are added to it. Purpose: this work aims to identify the tendencies regarding the extension of the range of intellectual property objects at the beginning of the 21st century, and to define the scientific and technological progress results that were granted protection under the influence of the Fourth Industrial Revolution and other factors. Methods: the method of formal logic, historical, comparative legal, systemic structural and formal dogmatic methods were used in course of the analysis. Results: international legal regulation does not provide clearly-defined guidelines to restrict the sphere of intellectual property. This factor undoubtedly contributes to expanding the list of its objects. At the beginning of the 21st century, law-based lists of copyrighted works did not include any new items. The institute of neighboring rights is most dynamically developing in the Law of the European Union. The Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market proposes recognizing two new neighboring rights. One of them is the right of the press publishers for online use of their publications by the news aggregators. The other neighboring right included into the draft Directive was the right to coverage of sporting events. However, in February, 2019, the provisions on this right were excluded from the Directive. In our opinion, biomedical cell products constitute new objects of civil circulation that require their own legal regulation as intellectual property constituents. Conclusions: intellectual property law cannot and should not undergo changes with the emergence of every new kind of objects. The contemporary challenge facing civil jurisprudence and the legislature is to formulate universal regulations that would make it possible to protect the rights of authors and developers of technological solutions even at the stage of experiments.