All over the world, fractious fights over ownership rights have raged unabated this past year, especially between rich and poor nations. This fall, we watched a classic face-off when China, finally acknowledging its enormous AIDS problem, broached the idea of making its own generic AIDS drugs. Depending on one's point of view, China's announcement was received as either a desperately overdue public-health decision or a frontal assault on the World Trade Organization and the U.S. pharmaceutical industry.

Many debates over intellectual property are driven by empty dogma. For reasons I've never quite fathomed, many supporters of intellectual-property rights hold the erroneous belief that more is always better: stronger ownership rights will always foster more innovation and a stronger economy. Conversely, plenty of people hold the equally dubious view that patent and copyright systems will always amass more power for elite companies, squash innovation, and exploit developing countries.