The corporate sector is on the verge of patenting human genes. From Hand to Head 2.13 Property is the basic resource from which income flows. Through time the economy has evolved and the nature of property has changed. When new types and forms of property appear the economy, i.e. what can be bought and sold, changes. The emergence of new forms of property generally propels the economy to new heights.
Today there are essentially three distinct types of knowledge.
Each flows down like water from glacier-clad mountains to mingle and mix in the lowlands of the economy where they are put to work. Such rights generate streams of income based on application by their owner or through royalties paid by others for use of another s intellectual property. In the New Year, a levy on blank audiotape and cassettes came into force in Canada with revenues distributed to copyright owners of musical works. This is, in all probability, only the beginning of a wave of new levies on all forms of blank recording material audio, video and computer. In the USA, Internet patents are increasingly be issued by the Patent Office and used in the courts to preserve and protect new forms of intellectual property by their owners.