By giving creators rights to benefit from their work, it fosters innovation, but as the world becomes more digital and globalized, IP law must address new challenges that concern new third parties that aren’t the creators, including environmental concerns, fair access, and evolving cultural norms.

At our Center, Prof. Daniel Benoliel, a respected research fellow in intellectual property at the University of Oxford, brings an international and forward-looking perspective to these debates. Together with Prof. Sacha Bourgeois Gironde, he presents an innovative perspective in their article “Ecosystem Services IP: Exploiting Natural Resources for Innovation.” They suggest a new form of intellectual property right that recognizes nature itself as a stakeholder represented, for instance, by a river or a forest. In their model, using natural resources for innovation would require a license and provide compensation, such as funding conservation or restoration projects. This vision reframes intellectual property law as a tool.

Sources:

Benoliel, Daniel; Bourgeois-Gironde, Sacha. “Ecosystem Services IP: Exploiting Natural Resources For Innovation”. In: University of Illinois Law Review. No. 3. pp. 935-988. 2025.

Benoliel, Daniel et al., eds., Intellectual Property, Innovation and Economic Inequality. Cambridge Univ. Press. 2024.

Benoliel, Daniel. IP in an era of new mercantilism. In: Improving Intellectual Property. pp. 473-483. Edward Elgar Publishing Ltd. 2023.