In recent papers, two pro-intellectual property libertarians, Richard Epstein and Objectivist Adam Mossoff, try to defend IP by arguing that it “can” be treated like property by a legal system.

In Epstein’s case, see his The Structural Unity of Real and Intellectual Property (video) (discussed here) and his The Disintegration of Intellectual Property? A Classical Liberal Response to a Premature Obituary. From the abstract of the latter piece:

The title of this paper plays off the title of Thomas Grey’s well known article, The Disintegration of Property, which argued in part that the ceaseless consensual fragmentation and recombination of property rights revealed some inner incoherence of private property institutions. I take the opposite position and treat this supposed disintegration as evidence of the robust nature of private property rights, not only for land but for all forms of intellectual property.

From the text of the former article:

My historical path influences the way I think about intellectual property. While others might look first to the statutes or the case law, I take a step back from these particulars. I first try to understand something about the general configuration of property rights as it works for various kinds of material objects. So armed, I then asked how intellectual property fits into the general framework. I did not start with the question of why intellectual property in its various forms is unique and distinct. To me the key question is how much of basic understanding about property rights carries over into intellectual property.

… The next question is how do these four elements [for treatment of physical resources]—exclusion, disposition, fragmentation and concentration—combine when the task is to examine the universe of intellectual property? And the answer is, it translates amazingly well.

Mossoff, in his draft chapter “Commercializing Property Rights in Inventions: Lessons for Modern Patent Theory from Classic Patent Doctrine,”1 argues (from Abstract):

At the start of the Industrial Revolution, patentees created many novel and complex transactions to commercialize their property: they maximized their profits through sophisticated agreements that imposed restrictions on manufacturing, sales, and other uses of their inventions. When these restrictions were challenged as invalid restraints on property, courts consistently upheld them. They did so by employing the same concepts and doctrines used by common law courts to validate the creation of lesser estates or restrictive covenants for real property. In sum, early American courts incorporated into patent law the same legal doctrines governing conveyances of real estate, even going so far as adopting the common law property concepts of “assignments” and “licenses.” Given widespread confusion today concerning patent conveyance doctrines, this chapter explains the structure and content of this now-forgotten doctrinal framework.