This is a rare book. It stakes out its territory right at the inflection point where past turns in to future, and where all the debates and arguments must be held about directions for our human development. It is, finally, political, radical and even revolutionary, as well as being a scholarly work of lucid philosophy and well argued law.

Who Owns You lays out a schematic for those debates which we as informed citizens must engage or suffer a return to serfdom; commoners without a commons. It points out specific transgressions already made in a direction that is or soon will be toxic for our collective humanity beyond the castle walls of corporate empire.

This is a very important book. It defines our boundaries. It explores our limits; not the limits of knowledge or consciousness, but as social animals, trying to get along without suffering ownership as something less than human.

"Territory" is what "letters patent" from the crown once granted proprietorship over. Now that all real property has pretty much been spoken for, what is contested are discoveries - more properly intentional inventions - of things and processes which never before existed.

Dr. Koepsell takes care to distinguish among aesthetic and utilitarian production - copyright and patent - and tokens vs. forms as patentable or copyrightable human creation. With stunning clarity, the history and usage of important terms are set out, such that natural law can be distinguished from technological processes and ideas from their expression. Production which can both be "enclosed" and distinguished from common sense is or may be properly patentable. Discoveries of that which cannot be enclosed nor attributable to intentional expression are excluded from private ownership, and must be protected for common use.

The case is made with exquisite precision that it has been a mistake, both ethically and legally, to allow the patenting of gene sequences. Furthermore, the process to isolate specific genetic anomalies may constitute a kind of expropriation of what properly belongs to the individual from whose tissues these patterns have been isolated. A case is made that there may be cause to expand legal definitions for privacy, ownership, and the commons to accommodate the advancements in basic science which have made gene sequencing possible. This case is supported not only ethically, legally, and philosophically, but also with regard to its practical impact on scientific advancement and economic stimulus.

If one did not know already that these are critical matters of more than specialized interest, one quickly discovers that truth in reading this compact book. Open Source, public licensing, funding for basic research, and the differences between scientific and technological advancement are all touched. It is surprisingly difficult on ones own to piece together an understanding of the background for approaching these difficult issues. This work does all that for the reader and more.

It really does matter. That is the main import of Who Owns You . In that sense, this might be an almost revolutionary manifesto, exposing some dangers to status quo, in the same powerful way as does, for one example, Naomi Klein's Shock Doctrine . They may not know just what they do (or they may), but we must.

Ironically, the "territory" staked out by this book is not just at land's end, but conceptually at the end of what might distinguish basic science from technological contrivances based on that science. Arguably, a gene sequence is so difficult to apprehend - so dependent on complex processes and understandings - that to patent the particular sequence identified is tantamount to and the same thing as patenting the process which has led to its identification. Such that finding the sequence through a different set of steps would amount to finding a different gene sequence, whose "usage" could only be provably identical if the sequences were useful in precisely the same way. This would amount to proprietorship of unmapped territories whose butting up against one another had yet to be established; whose overlapping grants had yet to be trampled.

Dr. Koepsell assumes - he must assume - that the gene is a unitary object, and that granting of overlapping patents is both inevitable and absurd. That by granting patents to gene sequences, one is granting patents to something that would always be discovered as the same entity, regardless of path or process taken. That patenting genes is more akin to patenting blue eyes than to a process to make eyes blue. And absurd for that.

A careful reader must agree. This reader takes hope that the straw dog implicit in the argument - that technological advances will ultimately give humans the ability to choose their destiny; design their genes, for example - that this straw dog will go up in flames. The implicit argument is that it is for this very reason that we must be concerned about "who owns you" as if there were a perpetual battle between freedom and tyranny. There might be. I hold out for surprises which will bury both beneath the still overwhelming power of "nature" to keep our humanness in check. We will not engineer our way out of evolution, though the attempt may yet destroy any chance for life as life at the level of the human.

That, finally, is why this book is so important. It argues for life. Not mawkishly, as religionists do. But scientifically, as an argument to keep surprise itself from being enclosed and owned.

"Who owns you?" According to Koepsell (Assistant Professor, Philosophy Section, Faculty of Technology, Policy, and Management, Technology University of Netherlands, Delft; Senior Fellow, 3TU Centre for Ethics and Technology, The Netherlands; Ph.D, Philosophy, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1997; J.D., SUNY at Buffalo School of Law, 1995; B.A, Political Science/English, State University of New York at Buffalo, 1990; author of several books including The Ontology of Cyberspace as well as scholarly articles; [...]), an author, attorney, philosopher, and educator, whose research has focused on the nexus of science, technology, ethics, and public policy, you may be surprised and alarmed to learn that biotechnology companies, universities, and other research institutions now own the exclusive rights to many parts of you. As the aforementioned entities rush to patent the human genes comprising the human genome--the genetic code that largely defines the distinct features of humans, of which one-fifth is fully patented-- gene patenting threatens to infringe upon the rights of individuals and hinder scientific and technological progress. It also violates international agreements and is contrary to historical and legal norms. In this noteworthy publication, the author provides the first, nearly comprehensive study of the practices and implications of gene patenting. Koepsell maintains that gene patenting is harmful and needs to be reexamined. Using scientific findings, philosophical conclusions, and ethical determinations based upon his examination of the ontology of genes, the author advocates immediate legal reform. Among other solutions, he argues in favor of partly revoking intellectual property laws in order to establish the naturally-occurring, human genome as a "commons by necessity" that will not be patentable by companies, universities, or other research institutions. Divided into nine chapters, covering the science of genes, their ontology, the legal dimensions of gene ownership, intellectual property laws, pragmatic considerations, and more, this accessible, expertly-argued, insightful, nicely-presented, sufficiently-documented, interdisciplinary study on the practices and implications of gene patenting will interest general readers as well as students, scholars, and professionals. It will serve as a significant resource for further understanding, knowledge, and research. This book belongs in many large, public, academic, and law library book collections. Highly recommended.

For such a complex subject this book is easy to follow. The issues are clearly explained and the arguments succinctly made. Patents are about inventions. The bedrock principle of any patent system is that natural phenomena are not patentable. They belong to no one. They are part of the public domain. They are to be shared by humanity for humanity. We all know that. True it may be that patents are granted to inventors for making their ingenious inventions known and available to the world and that is a social good that deserves a social reward, but the equilibrium between that good and that reward has been disrupted. At least 20% of the human genome is now subject to US patents. How has this happened? What does this mean at a practical everyday level? And what has to be done to stop this injustice? These are the questions which this book poses and explores. There is more to this book than academic gymnastics. It's actually really important for all of us to understand how the patent bureaucracy has undermined the patent system and what this means to all of us.

Wow. This is a fascinating topic with a lot of complex issues of science, philosophy and law. Who Owns You digs deep in all of these places. The author skips nothing on this methodical, philosophical trip. I found it a to be a great primer on the nuts and bolts behind the science of genomics. It also pieces apart a thicket of assumptions around our ideas of identity, personhood, ownership and yes property rights (copyrights, patents etc). Even if you find yourself differing with the author on some of his conclusions your thinking on the subject will be an order of magnitude more precise and informed after reading this.
His writing style is very friendly and readable. In the best tradition of science writing it embraces complexity with aplomb. The details and research really made the book, and it's arguments, come alive for me. It's rare that such an erudite argument is so fun to read.