The new paradigm of creativity and innovation and its corollaries for the law of obligations I. THREE CLAIMS AND ONE COROLLARY For over three centuries, in our legal systems, the incentive to creativity and technological innovation has been provided by the legal tool of exclusivity. Over that period of time, exclusivity underpinned a paradigm which dominated all the areas of creativity and innovation and shaped each and all intellectual property rights (IPRs) as enshrined in the twin Conventions of Paris (1883) and of Berne (1886): copyrights, patents, as well as trademarks. 1 However, in the last 20 years the question has arisen whether, in an age in which a great part of novel creations and innovations comes in digital format and network-driven digital platforms 1 The point has been made innumerable times; on the role of exclusivitycategorized as one of the three 'P's (Property, Procurement and Patronage) which may remedy market failure in the provision of public goodssee the brilliant presentation by P. David, 'Intellectual Property Institutions and the Panda's Thumb: Patents, Copyrights, and Trade Secrets in Economic Theory and History', in M. B. Wallerstein, M. E. Mogee and R. A. Schoen (eds), Global Dimensions of Intellectual Property Rights in Science and Technology, Washington, D.C. (1993) 19, expanded in a later and memorable presentation at the Alessandria University, 'Le istituzioni della proprietà intellettuale e il pollice del Panda: brevetti, diritti d'autore e segreti industriali nella teoria economica e nella storia', in G. Clerico and S. Rizzello (eds), Diritto ed economia della proprietà intellettuale, Padua, (1998) 9, 24, 28. A thorough rethinking of the roles of the three Ps in the current context is to be found in the groundbreaking paper by M. Libertini, 'Funzioni ed ancoraggi apicali della proprietà industriale' forthcoming. The recurring underestimation of the role played by public procurement in innovation is rebutted in two important recent works:
