ENCLOSING NATURE: BORDERS, BOUNDARIES AND TRANSGRESSIONS - Making Sense of Nature - page 152

(or largely) discursive and ideational . After all, commodities can be seen as
material expressions of the ideas, creativity and insights of their inventors
(a novel purchased in a bookstore is an obvious example). Relatedly, many
commodities are marketed using certain signs and symbols (like the world-
famous 'golden arches' of McDonalds). Intellectual property covers both
what is 'behind' or 'inside' a commodity (but not visible to the eye), and
how it appears phenomenally. In each case, the tangible commodity is sep-
arated from a realm of thoughts or designs it is taken to instantiate. 3 As
such, intellectual property law, and the many thousands of legal profes-
sionals and officials involved in creating and enforcing it, is one of several
technical arenas in which the many distinctions presented in Figure 1.5
are reproduced and normalised. This law covers the whole family of legal
rights that can be claimed by firms and other creators of novel designs, pro-
cesses, images or artefacts. The principal types of rights pertain to patents,
trademarks, copyright, geographical indicators and trade secrets. Though dif-
ferent in the detail, each of these rights domains is intended to reward those
claiming a right and to exclude those who might profit from unrestricted
use of another's creations or inventions . 4
Typically, intellectual property rights can only be claimed by real or juridi-
cal individuals (i.e. a person or an organisation). Communities or distinct
categories of people (e.g. 'first nations' North Americans) must usually find
some other vehicle to have whatever distinctive contributions to knowl-
edge and practice they've made recognised. Globally, it's the United States,
United Kingdom, Japan, Canada, France, Germany and several other west
European countries that have done most to develop detailed, codified and
enforceable intellectual property laws. Much of this endeavour has been
in response to demands from entrepreneurs and firms to have their com-
mercial interests protected. The argument has been that one cannot turn
one's unique commodities into a revenue stream if rival producers are free
to copy or clone them without penalty. Because national intellectual prop-
erty laws and rules vary (in some cases being minimal and weakly enforced),
there's been a strong push by firms and governments in export economies
to create a more uniform legal and regulatory landscape overlaying interna-
tional borders. The first and still most visible example of this push was the
1994 Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights
(TRIPS). Applicable to members of the World Trade Organisation (which
was created as part of the discussions that led to the TRIPS rulebook being
written), the Agreement prescribes minimal intellectual property standards
applicable to internationally traded goods and it contains mechanisms for
redress if these standards are not adhered to.
In the past quarter century, one of the major growth areas for intellectual
property claims, disputes and settlements has involved biotechnology com-
panies. Novel techniques of the sort I briefly described in the third section
of Chapter 4 (like gene-splicing) have made it possible to create new bio-
logical phenomena. These phenomena pertain to both human biology and