Personal Property Law and Information Assets: Rehabilitation and Relevance

Abstract

More attention should be paid in both teaching and research to the issue of original acquisition in common law property, with particular emphasis on information assets. Personal property law provides sophisticated legal and equitable rules for the allocation and transfer of both tangible and intangible property, but has few doctrines capable of governing competing interests in information transactions. Whether by unconscious omission or intentional design, the common law presents no consistent legal response to claims for proprietary protection of information assets. Accordingly, if personal property law is to remain relevant, research efforts should be directed towards rehabilitation sufficient to take account of the economic, social and political significance of information assets. This will require development of an appropriate conceptual framework for analyzing the legal issues implicated in requests for commodification of information. In particular, rehabilitation in these circumstances must address the prevailing view that information assets are within the exclusive domain of statutory intellectual property regimes.

Keywords: personal property, intellectual property, information assets, acquisition, intangible