Of Harms and Benefits: Torts, Restitution, and Intellectual Property

Authors

Wendy J. Gordon, Boston University School of LawFollow

Author granted license

Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-ShareAlike 4.0 International

Document Type

Article

Publication Date

1992

ISSN

0047-2530

Publisher

University of Chicago Law School

Language

en-US

Abstract

Copyright and patent take the form of ordinary property. As tangible property has physical edges, intellectual property statutes create boundaries by defining the subject matters within their zone of protection. As real property owners have rights to prevent strangers from entering their land, intellectual property statutes and case law grant owners rights to exclude strangers from using the protected work in specified ways. As tangible property can be bought and sold, bequeathed and inherited, so can copyrights and patents.

Comments

Reprinted in 34 McGeorge Law Review 541 (2003).

Recommended Citation

Wendy J. Gordon, Of Harms and Benefits: Torts, Restitution, and Intellectual Property , in 21 Journal of Legal Studies 449 (1992).
Available at: https://scholarship.law.bu.edu/faculty_scholarship/1988