On 4/24/07, Debarshi 'Rishi' Ray debarshi.ray@gmail.com wrote:

" I am looking for volunteers to give me information for two reseach projects. One project is to verify when various US law schools started using the propaganda term "intellectual property" in names of classes. If you are at a university which has a law school, you could probably easily find out when it did so. The other project is to find out when the US Congress started to have committees named "intellectual property".

According to http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/general/, in 1893, an international organization called the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property (best known by its French acronym BIRPI) existed. Prior to that, the word intellectual property appears to have been used in Davoll et al. v. Brown. Here is a quote from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Intellectual_property:

<quote> The earliest use of the term "intellectual property" appears to be an October 1845 Massachusetts Circuit Court ruling in the patent case Davoll et al. v. Brown. in which Justice Charles L. Woodbury wrote that "only in this way can we protect intellectual property, the labors of the mind, productions and interests as much a man's own...as the wheat he cultivates, or the flocks he rears." (1 Woodb. & M. 53, 3 West.L.J. 151, 7 F.Cas. 197, No. 3662, 2 Robb.Pat.Cas. 303, Merw.Pat.Inv. 414). </quote>

The Convention Establishing the World Intellectual Property Organization was signed at Stockholm on July 14, 1967 http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/convention/trtdocs_wo029.html and it has defined that "intellectual property" shall include the rights relating to:

– literary, artistic and scientific works,

– performances of performing artists, phonograms, and broadcasts,

– inventions in all fields of human endeavor,

– scientific discoveries,

– industrial designs,

– trademarks, service marks, and commercial names and designations,

– protection against unfair competition,

and all other rights resulting from intellectual activity in the industrial, scientific, literary or artistic fields.

My best guess is that after 1967, "intellectual property" became fashionable everywhere.

In India, selling knowledge is looked down upon. That is the first lesson in the Panchatantra - the story book for our children. The story goes that King Immortal-Power desired his three sons Rich-Power, Fierce-Power and Endless-Power, who were supreme blockheads, to be educated in the art of life. He was advised to entrust the princes to Vishnusharman who had a reputation in numerous sciences. The King summoned Vishnusharman and said: "Holy Sir, as a favour to me you must make these princes incomparable masters of the art of practical life. In return, I will bestow upon you a hundred land-grants." Vishnusharman made answer to the King: "O King, listen. Here is the plain truth. I am not the man to sell good learning for a hundred land-grants... " and said he will show a sporting spirit in reference to artistic matters and in six months' time make the boys acquainted with the art of intelligent living else "His Majesty is at liberty to show me His Majestic bare bottom" ! The lessons of Vishnusharma in five books, the Panchatantra, have been translated from Sanskrit by Arthur W. Ryder, Berkeley, California, in 1925. The rest of the stories explain a lot about free trade and laissez faire but selling learning is seen as as cunning. Those interested in writing nested conditionals would be amazed by the nesting of stories within the stories in the five tantras. The translator in his introduction laments that Panchatantra is a niti shastra (roughly, about the wise conduct of life) and "western civilization must endure a certain shame in realizing that no precise equivalent of the term is found in English, Frenchy, Latin or Greek.

Intellectual property is a great assault on the culture of India - would we ask it to be dismantled?

Also, Cartoonstack has a number of ideas on gifting "intellectual property" at: http://www.cartoonstock.com/directory/i/intellectual_property_gifts.asp :)

Ramanraj K