Besides Constitutional Law and Criminal Law, I’m taking both Property (aka land, stuff- ‘real’ property) and Principles of Intellectual Property (mentioned earlier today.) I expected the IP class to refer to the property class, but maybe not to this extent.
My intellectual property class is being co-taught by a real property prof. He wrote the textbook… for my real property class (bio). The textbook cites Lessig’s blog posts about Google Print while discussing whether airplane overflights are trespass. (This post, and this followup.) I did not expect to get a Lessig reference in real property before I saw one in IP. (To be fair, there was a very passing CC reference in IP class today, in discussion of the use of terms other than ‘property’ to discuss IP. Point still stands. :)
IP is the property of each intellect that legitimately receives it.
If you have an exclusive secret it is your exclusive and private property. If you disclose it to another, you both own it. If you disclose it to the public, the public owns it (which includes you).
The only controversy with IP is the idea that you can deliver it to the public and yet continue to retain exclusive ownership.
Patents and copyright confer commercial privileges, not property rights. The privileges themselves of course may be treated as property relating to IP.