The Law and Economics of Intellectual Property in the Digital Age: The Limits of Analysis

This book explores the economic analysis of intellectual property law, with a special emphasis on the Law and Economics of informational goods in light of the past decade’s technological revolution. In recent years there has been massive growth in the Law and Economics literature focusing on intellectual property, on both normative and positive levels of analysis. The economic approach to intellectual property is often described as a monolithic, coherent approach that may differ only as it is applied to a particular case. Yet the growing literature of Law and Economics in intellectual property does not speak in one voice. The economic discourse used in legal scholarship and in policy-making encompasses several strands, each reflecting a fundamentally different approach to the economics of informational works, and each grounded in a different ideology or methodological paradigm.

This book delineates the various economic approaches taken and analyzes their tenets. It maps the fundamental concepts and the theoretical foundation of current economic analysis of intellectual property law, in order to fully understand the ramifications of using economic analysis of law in policy making. In so doing, one begins to appreciate the limitations of the current frameworks in confronting the challenges of the information revolution. The book addresses the fundamental adjustments in the methodology and underlying assumptions that must be employed in order for the economic approach to remain a useful analytical framework for addressing IPR in the information age.

Professor Eli M Salzberger was the Dean of the Faculty of Law at the University of Haifa and the President of the European Association of Law and Economics. His research and teaching areas are legal theory, economic analysis of law, legal ethics, and the Israeli Supreme Court.

Niva Elkin-Koren is the Dean of the University of Haifa Faculty of Law and the founding director of the Haifa Center for Law & Technology. Her research focuses on the legal institutions that facilitate private and public control over the production and dissemination of information. Their first co-authored book Law, Economic and Cyberspace was published by Edward Elgar in 2004.