Vol 7 No 1 - Roger Williams University School of Law

patent law is the utilitarian ethic that legal protection ofintellectual property is needed to advance public welfare becauseit fosters creative genius/product, which can in turn be distributedfor the good of the general public.16 In the words of the UnitedStates Supreme Court in Mazer v. Stein:17The economic philosophy behind the clause empoweringCongress to grant patents and copyrights is the conviction thatencouragement of individual effort by personal gain is the bestway to advance public welfare through the talents of authors andinventors in ‘Science and useful Arts.’18This economic conception of intellectual property is reinforcedby the copyright and patent statutes, which bestow rights uponthe IP owner to control the economic exploitation of the work orproduct. The intellectual property law of the United Kingdom,Canada and Australia has exhibited a similar utilitarian economicbasis.19 As well, in these systems the IP owner holds economicrights to exploit the information, e.g., the exclusive right of thecopyright owner to control reproduction.Lockean Natural RightsThe view that a person possesses a natural right to own whatthey have created through their labour is also very influential inmany intellectual property systems throughout the world.20 Inmore recent times, though, copyright claims to own information onthe basis of labour have not been accepted in the United States orCanada per se, although a recent decision in Australia was morereceptive to such claims.21 If copyright is to be the vehicle for theclaim to own the value of adding one’s labour to the common stockof information in the United States and Canada, then the labourmust produce an intellectual product. Otherwise mere “sweat of16. See e.g., Paul Goldstein, Copyright’s Highway 165-96 (1994).17. 347 U.S. 201 (1953).18. Id. at 219.19. See Welcome Real-Time SA v. Catuity Inc. [2001] F.C.A. 445, at para. 129(Austl.); David Vaver, Intellectual Property Law 6-13 (1997); David Fewer,Constitutionalizing Copyright: Freedom of Expression and the Limits of Copyright inCanada, 55 U.T. Fac. L. Rev. 175, 187-93 (1997).20. See Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union art. 17, at para. 2.(“Intellectual property shall be protected.”); Fewer, supra note 19, at 187-89, 191-93(discussing the application of this theory to Canadian intellectual property law).21. See Telstra Corp. v. Desktop Marketing Sys. Pty. Ltd. [2001] F.C.A. 612(Austl.).