Economic and legal controversies around IPRs

This chapter is rather theoretical and questions the value of IPRs at different levels. It begins by retracing the recent economic debate around the merit of IP law and certain partial dysfunctions. The responses to these problems differ greatly depending on the nature of the approaches. They can adopt a narrow or wide perspective, an exogenous or endogenous conception of the legal rule, or different modes of (scientific) proof: search for a causality or a balance between different principles of general interest. We then propose a reflection on different approaches to the question of property rights with specific focus on jurists’ point of view of intellectual rights. The chapter closes with the presentation of the book’s analytical framework grounded in the plurality of IPRs’ valorization and appropriation conventions driven by legal intermediaries. This pragmatist approach is positioned in relation to other economic approaches, notably the new institutional economy.