Humanizing Intellectual Property: Moving Beyond the Natural Rights Property Focus

This Article compares the natural rights property framework with the international human rights framework for intellectual property. These two frameworks share a common theoretical basis in the natural rights tradition but appear to lead to conflicting outcomes. Proponents of natural rights to intellectual property tend to support more expansive intellectual property protections. Yet, advocates of a human rights approach to intellectual property contend that human rights will have a moderating influence on intellectual property law.

This Article is among the first scholarly works to explore the apparent conflict between these two important frameworks for intellectual property. It concludes that a human rights approach to intellectual property enriches the natural rights intellectual property dialogue by broadening the analysis to acknowledge and value human interests that go beyond the individual property interest.