The book critically analyses the nature and scope of intellectual property rights using three different approaches: the philosophical, the empirical, and the theoretical. It studies the different justifications usually put forward in favour of protecting intellectual property rights, and shows how such rights come into conflict with other rights in society. The volume also discusses their benefits and drawbacks with the help of case studies. The author contends that rights can and should be 'structured in a lexical order of priority where rights which are linked to survival strategies ought to have enough legal teeth to trump rights which are more in the nature of economic entitlements, like intellectual property rights are'.