NOTE SUL VALORE DELLE "COSE DI ORIGINE UMANA"

Abstract

The convergence of supply-side economic policies and technological innovation produces a ceaseless flow of new proprietary assets, obtained from the enclosure of resources in the public domain or from "things" traditionally excluded from the market: human and non-human genome, reproductive capacities, information extracted from social and natural phenomena and public and private activities. Within this flow the "things" of human origin are particularly important. The main theses of this paper can be summarised as follows: (a) the removal of human tissues, and the information they "contain", from the market is based on the impersonal nature of knowledge; (b) human biological materials are not proprietary assets, therefore the patient's consent is not a transfer of ownership, but the act that originates a new category of assets, i.e. the biological samples; (c) the public collections of biological samples are an example of shared efficient management of common technologically advanced infrastructural assets; (c) from the analysis of the modalities of management of this resource, methodological and substantial indications for legislation can be drawn.