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Taxonomy, Type Specimens, and the Making of Biological Property in Intellectual Property Rights Law

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  07 December 2012

Bronwyn Parry
Bronwyn Parry*
Affiliation:
Professor of Social Science, Health and Medicine, Department of Social Science, Health and Medicine, King's College London. Email: Bronwyn.Parry@kcl.ac.uk
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Abstract

Despite remaining the most iconic and highly valorized metrical technology of the entire, now globally universalized, project of zoological and botanical taxonomy, very little attention has been given to highlighting the pivotal role that type specimens also play in constructing and disciplining contemporary relations to living property. Building on my earlier work on the relationship between biological classification and regulation,1 this article provides an overdue analysis of this technology's significance in introducing deposition, priority of publication, and authorship as the key conceptual and functional mechanisms not only of taxonomic classification, but also of the ascendant system for prosecuting rights to ownership of biological novelties in the contemporary era: the Euro-American system of intellectual property law.

Type
Research Article
Information
International Journal of Cultural Property , Volume 19 , Special Issue 3: Intangible Property at the Periphery: Expanding Enclosure in the 21st Century , August 2012 , pp. 251 - 268
Copyright
Copyright © International Cultural Property Society 2012

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