ABSTRACT
The private property rights in public knowledge goods, created by intellectual property systems, demonstrate the way in which modern western-styled democratic principles presuppose the nature of property rights as the basis for freedom and will-formation. However, in the context of the knowledge economy, this articulation of the totality of values upon the nature of the market and private property as the crucial starting-point, undermines the characterisation of different perspectives upon the debate as nonsensical, as it were. Trust implies the presumption of a certain degree of risk and indeed recognises the vulnerability of those with varying life chances within systems directed solely or even primarily by the market. Trust realises in the one trusted the obligation of trustworthiness. There is a distinct crisis in the 'trust' of the institutions responsible for health research and development and the diffusion of the subsequent benefits among users.
