ABSTRACT
In this section we will analyze the difficulties caused by the private property paradigm of IP
especially in managing the increasingly complex processes of innovation and creation inherent in
the ‘knowledge economy’.28 We do not argue that the general concept of IPRs is unsuited to new
technologies, far from it. The elasticity of the private property concept allows it only too easily to
expand to provide protection for anything from computer software to DMA fragments. There is
generally sufficient flexibility in the concepts defining the existing categories of IPRs to allow one
or other, or even more than one, to cover any new technology: hence, computer programs have
been protected both by copyright and patents, even though neither form is truly appropriate.29 In
other cases, legislatures have been lobbied to create sui generis private property rights, as with
plant varieties, computer chip designs, and databases. In either case, it is normally assumed that
some form of exclusive private property right is essential to stimulate and protect the investment
needed to generate innovation.
