It isn’t domestic

By and large, the core concern of intellectual property scholars who study international intellectual property is normative. They want to know how we can permit the broadest possible access to existing knowledge without undercutting the incentives needed to generate a high rate of new knowledge. This substantive, normative focus on the appropriate balance between the incentive effects and the access effects of intellectual property [*4] is the central concern of domestic intellectual property -- and heretofore the concern of states acting in relative isolation. Now that markets, including markets for knowledge goods, are transnational and global, that traditional question is transposed to the family of states. Here, the principle of territoriality -- that is, the principle that intellectual property law is primarily the creation of states and is confined to the borders of states -- induces intellectual property scholars to ask the following central question: is the sum of the intellectual property systems of heterogeneous states, as influenced through international intermediation and institutions, enhancing global welfare or not? The focus is inevitably normative, with some metric of social welfare serving as the focal point for analysis. 9