Comparative Intellectual Property & Religion

This Article introduces religion to comparative IP scholarship and explains how faith-based considerations can enhance it. Comparative IP scholars have extensively studied different IP laws in different jurisdictions, but they seemed to suggest an erroneous view that comparative IP and religion are like two parallel lines without intersection. Building on these scholars’ work, this Article discusses religion’s role in fostering a new vehicle for discussion and a new normative lens with the aim of ascertaining the existence and extent of religion in legal systems, serving as part of the comparison methodology between legal systems with potential for influencing the policy debates within U.S. legal systems. In addition to proposing the enhancement of comparative IP scholarship with religion, this Article helps to solve the problem of the lack of congruity between legal systems by finding surprising possibilities of functional equivalents and functional similarities.

In a nutshell, the IP laws of many modern countries are substantially influenced by religion in various dimensions, even though religion’s role may differ in different domains.