Hilty, Reto M. --- "Individual, Multiple and Collective Ownership: What Impact on Competition?" [2012] ELECD 192; in Rosén, Jan (ed), "Individualism and Collectiveness in Intellectual Property Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2012)

Book Title: Individualism and Collectiveness in Intellectual Property Law

Editor(s): Rosén, Jan

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9780857938978

Section: Chapter 1

Section Title: Individual, Multiple and Collective Ownership: What Impact on Competition?

Author(s): Hilty, Reto M.

Number of pages: 42

Extract:

1. Individual, multiple and collective
ownership: what impact on
competition?
Reto M. Hilty*

Dealing with different forms of ownership is an appealing challenge
today. In fact, awareness seems to be growing that "property" ­ leading
to ownership ­ is not a predetermined concept. The content of "property"
does not ensue by nature, but must be defined by law. "Property" can
notably be limited in time and scope in order to pursue specific objectives
in the public interest. For "property" as an institution should undoubt-
edly not solely realise the individual purposes of its owner (or owners);
ownership, in whatever form, must ultimately take into account the social
momentousness of the institution "property".1
This insight per se, however, does not provide a clear legal framework;
instead, a great number of related issues can be grouped under the heading
"ownership". And the discussion on what ownership ­ or property ­
shall encompass is, of course, also not new; on the contrary, substantial
research in this area has already been accomplished.2 If we want to narrow


* Director, Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property and Competition
Law, Munich; Professor at the Universities of Zurich and Munich. The author
wishes to thank Felix Trumpke, Scholarship Holder at the Max Planck Institute
for Intellectual Property and Competition Law, for his valuable support, especially
with regard to searching for documents.
1 In this sense Jefferson: "[. . .] the exclusive right as given not of natural right,

but for the benefit of society [. . .]", Thomas Jefferson to Isaac McPherson, 13
August 1883, in: ...