Examines the justification of patents, copyrights and trademarks in light of the political controversy over the TRIPS agreement.

Introduction Annabelle Lever; 1. Autonomy, social selves and intellectual property claims John Christman; 2. Corrective justice and intellectual property rights in traditional knowledge Stephen R. Munzer; 3. 'The genetic code is 3.6 billion years old: it's time for a rewrite': biotech patenting in the twenty-first century Graham Dutfield; 4. On the value of intellectual commons James Wilson; 5. Copyright infringement as compelled speech Abraham Drassinower; 6. Public reason, communication and intellectual property Laura Biron; 7. 'Sharing v. free riding: the case of P2P transmission of MP3 files' Geert Demuijnck; 8. 'The virtuous p(eer)' David Lametti; 9. Intellectual property rights and the TRIPS agreement: an overview of ethical problems and some proposed solutions Jorn Sonderholm; 10. Designing a successor to the patent as second best solution to the problem of optimum provision of good ideas Alexander Rosenberg.