Why Intellectual Property Does Not Belong in the Constitution(s): Four Considerations EIPR 42, 8 (2020), 461 - 464.
Starting from an empirical analysis of worldwide constitutions, this opinion criticizes the tendency to turn intellectual property into a full-fledged constitutional right on four grounds. Three of them concern the wording and structure of IP clauses, which indicate that constitutional texts are generally ill-suited to meaningfully regulate intellectual property. The last one puts constitutions into a historical perspective, to suggest that assemblies have, in some instances, unwittingly adopted IP clauses for ideological reasons unrelated to the goal of fostering creative knowledge.
