A modest proposal: toward improved access to biotechnology research tools by implementing a broad experimental use exception.

1042 Private property, including intellectual property, is essential to our way of life. It provides an incentive for investment and innovation; it stimulates the flourishing of our culture; it protects the moral entitlements of people to the fruits of their labors. But reducing too much to private property can be bad medicine. Private land, for instance, is far more useful if separated from other private land by public streets, roads and highways. Public parks, utility rights-of-way and sewers reduce the amount of land in private hands, but vastly enhance the value of the property that remains. So too it is with intellectual property. Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it. Creativity is impossible without a rich public domain.. .. Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stfles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture.