This chapter provides a history of intellectual property and an overview of
the U.S. intellectual property system. It discusses patents, copyrights,
trademarks, trade secrets, and ownership of research data. It also examines
some key pieces of intellectual property legislation, such as the Bayh-Dole
Act, and intellectual property cases, such as Diamond v. Chakrabarty. And
it discusses the moral and political foundations of intellectual property as
well as some ethical controversies, such as patents on biological materials.

Note: Nothing in this chapter should be taken as a legal advice. The
authors are not attorneys. Engaging an intellectual property attorney is
recommended in the event of contemplating issues related to a patents,
copyrights, or trademarks.

When most people think of their property, they imagine their house, their
land, their car, their book collection—something that they can touch, see,
feel, hear, smell, or taste. Many of the property rights that people have pertain
to tangible objects located in time and space. But people also claim to own
things that are not located in any particular time or space, such as a song, a
poem, computer software, a play, a formula, or an invention. These kinds of
intangible things that we claim to own are known as intellectual property
(Foster and Shook 1993). In general, property rights are collections of rights
to control some thing, such as a house. Someone who owns a house has a right
to sell, rent, modify, paint, use, or tear down the house. People who have in-
tellectual property have rights to control intangible objects that are products
of human intellect (Garner 1999). For instance, if you have a copyright on a
play, you are granted the right to prevent other people from performing the
play without your permission. You also have the right to sell your copyright on
the play.

Modern property right laws have their basis in Roman laws, which influ-
enced the development of legal systems in Europe and the United States. Na-
tions recognized property before the advent of the Roman Empire—Jewish
laws dating to the time of Moses address property issues, for example—but
the Romans developed what was at that time the world's most comprehensive
and precise legal system. The U.S. Constitution draws heavily on the property
rights theories of the eighteenth-century English philosopher John Locke.

Although the Western world has recognized property for thousands of
years, intellectual property is a more recent development. While ancient
Greek and Roman authors and inventors were concerned about receiving
proper credit for their discoveries, they did not have intellectual property laws.
Although the origins of patents are obscure, some of the world's first patents

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