Value Pluralism of International Intellectual Property Law

Abstract

Most theorists of IP law have attempted to justify intellectual property rights in preserving one particular value as a super value. The dominant view is that international IP law aims to maximize economic efficiency through incentivizing creation and reducing searching cost. This view regarded as a major hurdle against recent demand of developing countries to extend IP law system to Traditional Knowledge, Folklore and Genetic Resources. The protection of these matters could not be justified based upon economic considerations. In fact, it is based upon other values such as justice and fairness. The solution to overcome this hurdle is to believe in Value Pluralism at least at international level. Due to the diversity of the subject matters of IP law, as well as differences in beliefs and values of the host societies and failure of one single theory to justify all aspects of IP law, it is hard to reduce IP law system to one specific value. Instead, there are several values inside the system in which all of them have the same degree of importance and depending on each case, they could be super value. Therefore, it is necessary to find super value case by case and articulate any area of IP law in accordance with that Super value. Judges are also required to interpret the law on the protection of that specific superior value. After explaining the concept of pluralism of values and value monism, this article argues in support of pluralism of value in the field of intellectual property rights .In order to choose a super value in each case, two criteria will be provided.

Keywords

• value monism
• value pluralism
• super value
• midlevel principles
• conceptualism
• universalism