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Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

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Intellectual Property Law

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Full-Text Articles in Law

Chain Reaction: How Property Begets Property, Sabrina Safrin Jan 2007

Chain Reaction: How Property Begets Property, Sabrina Safrin

Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

Classic theories for the evolution of property rights consider the emergence of private property to be a progressive development reflecting a society’s movement to a more efficient property regime. This article argues that instead of this progressive dynamic, a more subtle and damaging chain reaction dynamic can come into play that traditional theories for intellectual and other property rights neither anticipate nor explain. The article suggests that the expansion of intellectual and other property rights have an internally generative dynamic. Drawing upon contemporary case studies, the article argues that property rights evolve in reaction to each other. The creation of …


Hyperownership In A Time Of Biotechnological Promise: The International Conflict To Control The Building Blocks Of Life, Sabrina Safrin Oct 2004

Hyperownership In A Time Of Biotechnological Promise: The International Conflict To Control The Building Blocks Of Life, Sabrina Safrin

Rutgers Law School (Newark) Faculty Papers

This article addresses the corrosive interplay between the patent-based and the sovereign- based systems of ownership of genetic material. In patent-based systems, genetic material is increasingly “owned” by corporations or research institutions which obtain patents over such material. In sovereign-based systems, the national government owns or extensively controls such material. As more patents issue for synthesized genes in developed countries through the patent system, more raw genetic material is legally enclosed by the governments of developing nations, which house most of the world’s wild or raw genetic material. This interactive spiral of increased enclosure results in the sub-optimal utilization, conservation …