It is necessary to begin as knowledge—the basic unit of intellectual property—so as to discuss intellectual property and intellectual property systems. Knowledge is often connected with information. In essence, they are the same thing. However, to use intellectual work to describe the subject of intellectual property is comparatively reasonable. Then, this article explores the history of knowledge's property. Noticeably, there is a special phenomenon that the attitude of agreeing to intellectual property's reasonability and the attitude of opposing to that reasonability coexist. It urges us to return intellectual property rights by themselves. Obviously, the subject of intellectual property's justifiability lies in the focus of intellectual property's discussion.In particular, theories of contemporary western intellectual property refer to the theories about intellectual property's justifiability. According to an American scholar named William Fisher, there are four approaches dominating the academic field. They are utilitarianism, labor theory, personality theory and social planning theory. Each approach has its own historical sources and contemporary representatives. And all of them have both advantages and disadvantages. Therefore, we are able to see the complication and variability among the above theories. As a master of fact, it seems to carry with some criticism when those theories are busy justifying the intellectual property's reasonability. Besides, it is noticeable that these four approaches respectively have their partly and even significant shortcomings. So they could share more...
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