Intellectual property rights : a critical history / Christopher May, Susan K. Sell.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Print version record.

Book Title -- Table of Contents -- Preface -- 1-Why You Need to Know About Intellectual Property -- Intellectual Property: Global Governance and History -- What Are Intellectual Property Rights? -- Setting the Stage -- 2-Ideas and Technology -- Justifying Intellectual Property -- Triangulating the History of Intellectual Property -- Contestation and Change in the History of Intellectual Property -- Notes -- 3-The Emergence of Intellectual Property Rights -- Early Antecedents of Intellectual Property

The Middle Ages, Guild Knowledge, and the Transition to Intellectual PropertyThe Venetian Moment: Intellectual Property Is Born -- Patents, Printing, and the Venetian Economy -- Elsewhere -- Notes -- 4-Commerce vs. Romantic Notions of Authorship and Invention -- From Venice to London: Some Continental Developments -- British Innovations in Patents -- British Innovations in Copyrights -- The Early Modern Period of Intellectual Property -- Notes -- 5-The Nineteenth Century: Technological Development and International Law -- Intellectual Property as Public Policy

The International Diversity of LawFrom the Patent Controversy to Paris and Bern -- Thomas Edison: Patents as a Business Strategy -- Copyright and Works for Hire -- The Ascendance of the German Chemical Industry -- Notes -- 6-The Twentieth Century: Intellectual Property Rights Consolidated -- Trust-busting and Cartels -- Skepticism About Intellectual Property Rights After 1945 -- Property Rights Resurgent -- Twentieth-Century Copyright -- Toward a Multilateral Settlement -- Notes -- 7-The Twenty-First Century: TRIPs and Beyond -- TRIPs -- After TRIPs

Notes8-Forgetting History Is Not an Option -- The Importance of History: The Global Politics of Intellectual Property Today -- The Resurgence of the World Intellectual Property Organization -- Political Implications -- Note -- Acronyms -- Bibliography -- Index -- About the Book

With intellectual property widely acknowledged today as a key component of economic development, those accused of stealing knowledge and information are also charged with undermining industrial innovation, artistic creativity, and the availability of information itself. How valid are these claims? Has the Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (TRIPs) Agreement ushered in a new, better era? Christopher May and Susan Sell trace the history of social conflict and political machinations surrounding the making of property out of knowledge. Ranging from ancient commerce in Greek poems to present-day controversies about on-line piracy and the availability of AIDS drugs in the poorest countries, May and Sell present intellectual property law as a continuing process in which particular conceptions of rights and duties are institutionalized; each settlement prompts new disputes, policy shifts, and new disputes again. They also examine the post-TRIPs era in the context of this process. Their account of two thousand years of technological advances, legal innovation, and philosophical arguments about the character of knowledge production suggests that the future of intellectual property law will be as contested as its past.

English.

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