Barczewski, Maciej; Zajadlo, Jerzy --- "Intellectual Property and Technology – Looking for the Twelfth Camel?" [2011] ELECD 451; in Kur, Annette; Mizaras, Vytautas (eds), "The Structure of Intellectual Property Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2011)

Book Title: The Structure of Intellectual Property Law

Editor(s): Kur, Annette; Mizaras, Vytautas

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848448766

Section: Chapter 9

Section Title: Intellectual Property and Technology – Looking for the Twelfth Camel?

Author(s): Barczewski, Maciej; Zajadlo, Jerzy

Number of pages: 11

Extract:

9. Intellectual property and technology
­ looking for the twelfth camel?
Maciej Barczewski* and Jerzy Zajadlo**

1. INTRODUCTION

A well-known contemporary German law theoretician Günther Teubner
very often invokes the following anecdote in his work:

An old wealthy bedouin sheikh wrote his will and divided his fortune, a large
herd of camels, among his three sons. Achmed, the eldest son, was to inherit
the first half of the fortune, Ali, the second son, should get a fourth, Benjamin,
the youngest son, a sixth. When the father died, unfortunately only eleven
camels were remaining. Achmed, of course, demanded six of them and was
at once contested by his brothers. Finally, when everything broke down, they
turned to the khadi. He decided: `I offer you one of my camels. Return it to me,
Allah willing, as soon as possible'. Now, with 12 camels, the division was easy.
Achmed got his half, 6 camels, Ali got a fourth, 3 camels, Benjamin a sixth, 2
camels. And indeed, the twelfth camel was left over which they kept and fed
very well and happily returned to the khadi.1

In Teubner's concept, the anecdote is an element of a certain vision of
law as an autopoietic system. For law and lawyers, however, other morals
may also be drawn from this tale. One of these may be as follows: the
work of every lawyer, both theoretician and practitioner, as a matter of
fact consists in searching for the twelfth camel. The law in the ...