Moving beyond the specialist categories of patents and copyright, this chapter focuses on the drive to render appropriable the more diffuse intangible resource of information. It first considers features of the debate over a policy of legal appropriation, then looks in detail at the extent to which information has been rendered appropriable by the common law policy of protecting confidences. It notes legislative initiatives to settle protection on trade secrets. It then raises the prospect of the criminalization of the misappropriation of information.

The need to discuss law's policy towards the ownership and control of information, and specifically technical and commercial information, is recognition of the view that information is becoming a central feature of ‘post-industrial’ economies around the world (see, e.g. Commonwealth of Australia. House of Representatives Standing Committee on Long-term Strategies, 1991). However, before we commence, we should note that this view remains contested. In particular, the importance of the conditions of information supply to an understanding of the economy appears to be a bone of contention between the neo-classical and institutionalist schools of economic thought. Their debate is beyond the ken of this discussion, though we shall touch on some of the points they make in passing.

In its manifestations most relevant to this inquiry, information takes the form of particular formulae, patterns, methods and processes, and the research and processing know-how and organizational capability essential to the successful production of high technology inventions. Of course, if our treatment were to be exhaustive, we would not only consider the status in law of technical information and production know-how.