Recommended Citation
Brett Frischmann,
Capabilities, Spillovers, and Intellectual Progress: Toward a Human Flourishing Theory for Intellectual Property,
14(2024-01-02)
Review of Economic Research on Copyright Issues
1
(2017).
Available at:
https://digitalcommons.law.villanova.edu/facpubs/188
Abstract
Courts, commentators, and even casebooks mistakenly assume that intellectual property laws are fundamentally utilitarian and thus the relevant objective for intellectual property laws is maximizing social welfare. Economic theories of intellectual property dominate while rights-based theories and other alternatives struggle to remain relevant in the discourse. This essay accepts that intellectual property laws are consequentialist, but it mounts a challenge to the utilitarian theories that dominate. Following the path set by Amartya Sen in the area of development economics and borrowing heavily from the Sen’s analytical and normative framework — the Capabilities Approach, this essay begins to develop a human flourishing theory for intellectual property.
ISSN
1698-1359
Publisher
The Society for Economic Research on Copyright Issues
Additional Information
Published from SSRN