ABSTRACT
The 'organism' of intellectual property has become perhaps quite misleading in that much innovation and improvement goes on despite what is presented in terms of the intellectual property system. The intellectual property system has often been taken to account for much more than what is proposed by a commercial law framework, including ethical oversight. The concept of 'lifeworld' comes from German sociology and phenomenology, and is relevant to the 'crisis' in intellectual property particularly in its more recent use by Jürgen Habermas. The Constitution of the World Health Organization defines health broadly and recognises the right to enjoyment of the highest attainable standard of health as one of the fundamental human rights. The inequities and asymmetries in access to goods and to benefits identified by the Access to Knowledge movement indicate the direct relevance of this concept to issues of intellectual property and public health.
