The Limits of Intangible Property Rights (original) (raw)
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This paper discusses the concept of "property" rights in an interdisciplinary perspective (Law and Economics) in order to compose an analytical conceptual framework to issues related to appropriability involved in public goods (PG) and common pool resources (CPR) analysis. Firstly, we discuss the differences between legal and economic concepts of property rights, trying to integrate economic and legal analytical elements: a right is an opportunity for current or future uses of an asset that is guaranteed by legal system (an enforceable power to maintain the control over economic opportunities). Although economists may not be concerned if some opportunity is guaranteed (or not) by law, nor whether its entitlement is made by means of property or by some other kind of right, these differences also matter for economic analysis. To deal with this question, we need to open the "black box" of the so called "property" rights: a) identifying and analyzing the di...
The Origins, Nature, and Content of the Right to Property: Five Economic Solitudes
The thesis of this article is that the now extensive contemporary literature on the economics of property rights has generated more heat than light. Economists have invoked at least five distinct theories of ownership or property rights in their work. Unfortunately, authors frequently fail to acknowledge the existence of competing theories of property rights that stand as conceptual rivals to the theory that they, often implicitly, invoke. Nowhere is this problem more evident than in the literature on regulatory takings, a literature that has a justifiable reputation for its inconsistent conclusions. Other fields in which theories of property rights play an important role include intellectual property, the economics of contracts, competition analysis and policy, externalities, and the economics of information. This article compares and evaluates five competing theories of property rights that have been advanced and used by economists: classical liberalism, utilitarianism, legal positivism, pragmatism, and modern libertarianism. These theories present divergent accounts of the origin and the nature of ownership claims. They also conceptualize the evolution of ownership institutions as well as ownership patterns quite differently. There are also important differences in incentives that exist under institutional regimes based on each theory.
Intellectual property as intangible good
Ekonomia i Prawo, 2019
Motivation: Nowadays in economic literature we can observe the increasing popularity of the concept of intellectual property. Nevertheless, this growth is not accomplished by solving conceptual problems. The number of existing definitions, considerations about the intellectual property among intangible resources and descriptions of its characteristic features is enormous. Therefore, in-depth studies on concept of intellectual property are necessary from the point of view of economics and law. Aim: The main purposes of the paper are: to place intellectual property in the area of intangible assets and to specify and describe its specific features. The paper also tries to answer the question: is intellectual property a private, a public or a club good. Results: The paper discusses the differences and relationship between such economic concepts as: property, intangible goods, tangible goods and intellectual property. It exemplifies and describes specific features of intellectual property, and also discusses situations in which intellectual property can be perceived as a private good, a public good or as a club good.
Justifying Intellectual Property: Chapter 1
Why should a property interest exist in an intangible item? In recent years, arguments over intellectual property have often divided proponents – who emphasize the importance of providing incentives for producers of creative works – from skeptics who emphasize the need for free and open access to knowledge.In a wide-ranging and ambitious analysis, Robert P. Merges of UC Berkeley (Boalt Hall) Law School establishes a sophisticated rationale for the most vital form of modern property: IP rights. His insightful new book answers the many critics who contend that these rights are inefficient, unfair, and theoretically incoherent. But Merges’ vigorous defense of IP is also a call for appropriate legal constraints and boundaries: IP rights are real, but they come with real limits.Drawing on the property theory of Kant, Locke, and Rawls as well as contemporary scholars such as Jeremy Waldron and Wendy Gordon, Merges crafts an original explanation of why IP rights make sense as a reward for ...
On the Impossibility of Intellectual Property
Quarterly Journal of Austrian Economics, 2020
The concept of intellectual property (IP) has been variously criticized as incompatible with natural rights and detrimental to the dissemination of innovations. In this paper I argue that it can be criticized on an even more fundamental level-namely as a praxeological impossibility. More specifically, it is suggested that since ideas are not economic goods, but preconditions of action, and since physical goods transformed by ideas become as heterogeneous (and thus as intellectually unique) as the individuals who enact such transformations, no economic goods can be meaningfully designated as appropriable in virtue of embodying the objectively definable value of one's intellectual labor. In view of the above, I subsequently suggest that IP protection laws constitute an exceptionally arbitrary and thus exceptionally disruptive form of interventionism directed against the very essence of the entrepreneurial market process.
This paper will study the different conceptions about economic nature of (Intelectual) Property Rights, and the implications in regard to Welfare. This analysis may be applied in various fields concerned with intangible components: ecology, cultural goods, knowledge and information production, internet economics, for example. In regard to the complexity of these types of intangible capital, I will show the limits of the private negotiation inspired in Coase´s approach, and underline the opposition between this approach and the Williamson´s one.
Introduction : Philosophy of intellectual property – incentives , rights and duties
2012
The new frontiers in the philosophy of intellectual property lie squarely in territories belonging to moral and political philosophy, as well as legal philosophy and the philosophy of economics – or so this collection suggests. Those who wish to understand the nature and justification of intellectual property may now find themselves immersed in philosophical debates on the structure and relative merits of consequentialist and deontological moral theories, disputes about the nature and value of privacy, or the relationship between national and global justice. Conversely, the theoretical and practical problems posed by intellectual property are increasingly relevant to bioethics and philosophy and public policy, as well as to more established areas of moral and political philosophy. Perhaps this is just to say that the philosophy of intellectual property is coming into its own as a distinct field of intellectual endeavour, providing a place where legal theorists and philosophers can h...