A Critique of the Ontology of Intellectual Property Law

Alexander Peukert is Professor of civil law, intellectual property, and competition law at Goethe University, Frankfurt am Main/Germany. He has published five books and more than seventy articles in these fields, with a focus on the theoretical foundations of intellectual property law.

• 1. Introduction; 2. Two ontologies; 3. Two abstractions; 4. Interim summary: an implausible paradigm; 5. The legal explanatory power of the two ontologies; 6. Normative critique of the abstract IP object.

'A Critique of the Ontology of Intellectual Property Law presents a radical reassessment of contemporary IP law. Alexander Peukert argues that the abstract property model upon which the law rests is fake. He traces the historical development of this model and demonstrates its tendency to support commodification, before proposing an alternative, more materialist form of regulation for the products of creativity and inventiveness. This erudite book throws down an important challenge to common assumptions and therefore deserves close attention from all scholars of IP law.' Jonathan Griffiths, Queen Mary University of London