Document Type
Article
Publication Title
Boston University Law Review Online
Abstract
The question is what inferences can be drawn from this brief account. I think that there are two points worth making. The first is that physical assets, by nature, have a greater variation in appropriate property rights because of the great heterogeneity of the circumstances in which these rights are created. The point applies not only to the rules on acquisition for animals but also to the structure of rights for other resources. The structure of water rights is the most important. Water rights are generally thought to be in some sense common rights, with all sorts of correlative duties and few absolute temporal priorities. The variation in water systems between riparian, reasonable use, and prior appropriation all matter, and the choices in question are largely unintelligible without some appreciation of the differences between a gentle English river, the larger rivers in the eastern half of the United States, and the raging rivers of the West. Thus, it is important to explain the differences and the similarities, and the tools for that task have to be many and varied. Ironically, intellectual property presents less of a reason to have different forms of acquisition, at least within each of the broad classes of patents, copyrights, and trademarks, where the relevant differences are between classes and not within classes. Oliar and Stern have much to say on the intellectual property dimensions; however, such issues are beyond the scope of this short comment.
First Page
11
Volume
100
Publication Date
2020
Recommended Citation
Epstein, Richard A., "The Acquisition of Property Rights in Animals: A Brief Comment on Oliar and Stern: Right on Time: First Possession in Property and Intellectual Property" (2020). Faculty Articles. 251.
https://gretchen.law.nyu.edu/fac-articles/251
