THE INFRASTRUCTURE OF INNOVATION: ACCOUNTABILITY AND ACCESS IN CONTEMPORARY IP LAW

Abstract

Intellectual property law once again stands at a constitutional crossroads. The traditional story of copyright, patents, trademarks, and trade secrets as incentive-generating private rights is being challenged by generative artificial intelligence, platform intermediation, standard-essential patents, biologic medicines, climate technology, data extraction, and the geopolitics of industrial policy. These developments not only raise additional facts for consideration under existing categories, but also reveal a broader policy question: intellectual property institutions are increasingly allocating access to the knowledge infrastructure on which speech, health care, scientific inquiry, competition, and technological sovereignty rest. This article proposes an interdisciplinary approach to contemporary intellectual property policy by synthesising legal doctrine with political economy, innovation theory, human rights, competition law, and information governance scholarship. The challenge here is not to choose between more versus less protection, but to craft accountable legal “interfaces” between proprietary regimes and systems of public access, transparency, licensing, and contestation. This book discusses five current policy disputes: authorship and invention in the era of artificial intelligence; transformative use and culture; patents, public health, and climate technology; platform regulation of branding and data; and trade secrets in algorithmic and biomedicine markets. This research draws on seminal cases, such as Feist, Eldred, Campbell, Google v. Oracle, Thaler, Mayo, Myriad, Huawei v. ZTE, Novartis v. Union of India, Deckmyn, and Pelham, as well as WTO case law. The paper proposes an alternative intellectual property policy model in which IP rights remain relevant but are subject to requirements of proportionality, evidence, public-option licenses, interoperability, procedural justice, and democracy.