Transcript Patent and property right

1. What does private property mean?
2. What may be implied by our recognition
that someone has property of her own?
3. How do people acquire private property?
 What are the justifiable means to
acquire pp?
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY
Patents
Trademarks
Copyrights
• Should they be protected by the governments on a
global scale?
PATENT (IN THE US)
a property right granted by the US Government
to an inventor "to exclude others from making,
using, offering for sale, or selling the invention
throughout the United States or importing the
invention into the United States" for a limited
time in exchange for public disclosure of the
invention when the patent is granted.
Trademarks
STAKEHOLDERS
• The Property Owner
• The Potential Buyers
• The Needy
• Society/Community
• Competitors
• Suppliers
PRIVATE PROPERTY?
• Objects
• Natural environment
• Fishes/Tress/Ivory
• Ideas
• Genes (Monsanto)
• People (slaves/women)
• Land (for the American Indians)
GROUNDS OF OWNERSHIP
• God’s will
• Natural Rights
• Efforts/Labor
• Need
• Public Welfare (Utilitarian concern)
PRODUCTION AND REPRODUCTION
• Material property and intellectual property
• Piracy
• Plagiarism
RIGHT ANALOGY?
「你既然不會偷車、偷錢，亦不會到商場的唱片店舖偷
唱片，所以，你也不應該在未經許可的情況下下載
電影及唱片檔案。」
EXCLUSIVE RIGHT
• To promote the progress of science and useful
arts, by securing for limited times to authors
and inventors, the exclusive right to their
respective writing and discoveries.
Article I, Section 8, The US Constitution
ARGUMENTS FOR PP RIGHTS
• Liberty
• Creative Self-fulfillment
• Autonomy, Self-determination
• People being subjects of their own destiny
• Social Utility
• Reward Researches to deal with Human Evils
R&D INVOLVES A HUGE INVESTMENT
• The pharmaceutical industry claims that on average it
costs over $100 million to develop a new drug and
bring it to market. (5-10% of sales)
• Pharmaceuticals are easily cloned and the industry is
one of the more seriously affected by pirating.
• If researches and developments are not effectively
protected, incentives to innovate will perish.
ARGUMENTS AGAINST PP RIGHTS?
• Social Utility?
• Cumulative Nature of the Creative Process
• Restrict Freedom: The inventive process should be as
free as possible.
• Need
• Community as a Collective Entreprise
IS PP RIGHT A NATURAL RIGHT?
• Unlike inalienable rights, intellectual property rights
can be subordinated to greater interests; in this case
the right of a people to livelihood. (Secondary Rights)
• Should the content of private property rights be
adjustable according to the socio-economic and
developmental characteristics, and public interests
priorities of a society? (Moral Relativism)