Justifying Intellectual Property
In this book, which promises to be a landmark in the field, Merges presents a wide-ranging and highly insightful synthesis of three strands of property-related philosophy in order to provide a grounding for mid-level principles of intellectual property. (Henry E. Smith, Harvard Law School)A new Bible for Intellectual Property...At the fundamental level, Merges relies upon deontological ethics derived from Locke (justification for appropriation), Kant (individual freedoms), and Rawls (distributive justice). By threading together these historic lines of thought, Merges provides an ethical foundation both for the establishment of property rights for creative contributions to society as well as for substantive limits to those rights.Justifying Intellectual Propertyis a fascinating book...[It] offers a new framework for understanding intellectual property with a particular focus on why it makes sense to offer property rights for creative enterprises. (Dennis CrouchPatentlyO.com2011-10-14)