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59 Stan. L. Rev. 257 (2006-2007)
IP3

handle is hein.journals/stflr59 and id is 269 raw text is: IP3

Madhavi Sunder*
A quarter century ago, Margaret Jane Radin interrupted the hegemonic law
and economics discourse on property with a theory of personhood. And the New
Jersey Supreme Court declared in the historic case of State v. Shack that
property rights serve human values. From these our modern social
relations theory of property was born. Now, the pundits declare that
intellectual property has come of age. But is intellectual property
philosophically and theoretically mature enough to face the world? Unlike its
cousins property law and the First Amendment, which bear the weight of values
such as autonomy, culture, equality, and democracy, in the United States
intellectual property is understood almost exclusively as being about incentives.
To put it bluntly, there are no giant-sized intellectual property values. But
there should be. Intellectual property has grown, perhaps exponentially, but its
march into all corners of our lives and to the most destitute corners of the world
has paradoxically exposed the fragility of its economic foundations while
amplifying its social and cultural effects. Indeed, with full compliance to the
TRIPS Agreement now required in all but the world's very least developed
countries, bringing with it patents in everything from seeds to drugs, intellectual
property law becomes literally an issue of life or death. Despite these real-world
changes, intellectual property scholars increasingly explain their field through
the lens of economics alone, evidence of Amartya Sen's observation that
* Carnegie Corporation Scholar, 2006-2008; Professor, University of California,
Davis, School of Law; J.D., Stanford Law School, 1997; A.B., Harvard College, 1992.
Thanks to Keith Aoki, Shyam Balganesh, Jack Balkin, Barton Beebe, Yochai Benkler,
Shubha Ghosh, Jamie Boyle, Michael Brown, Maggie Chon, Julie Cohen, Marianne
Constable, Christopher Fonzone, Ron Gilson, Paul Goldstein, Sally Gordon, Tom Griffith,
Gillian Hadfield, Justin Hughes, Sudhir Krishnaswamy, Mark Lemley, Lawrence Liang,
Jamie Love, Rob Merges, Michael Moore, Martha Nussbaum, John Oakley, Peggy Radin,
Pam Samuelson, Alan Schwartz, Joseph Singer, Siva Vaidyanathan, Bob Weisberg, and my
intellectual property students for illuminating conversations. This Article also gained
immensely from presentations at the Stanford/Yale Jr. Faculty Forum at Yale Law School,
and at the University of Arizona, University of California, Berkeley (Boalt Hall),
Georgetown University Law Center, Moritz College of Law at Ohio State, Notre Dame Law
School, the University of Southern California, and Stanford Law School. The Stanford Law
Review editors (especially Francesco Valentini and David Moskowitz), the King Hall
librarians (especially Erin Murphy), and my research assistants Sheirin Ghoddoucy, Leena
Kamat, Alexandra Latta, Michael Mellema, Jishnu Menon, Eric Nguyen, Seth Sternglanz,
Joanne Suk, and Stephanie Zook provided excellent help.
I reserve special thanks for Anupam Chander, my collaborator in all things. I dedicate
this Article to our daughter, Anoushka, who loves to Mary Sue herself into the Hundred
Acre Wood, and to our son, Milan, both of whom have shown us the wonders of creation.

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