The Current Intellectual Property Debate: A Citation-Based Analysis

This paper addresses the research landscape of Intellectual PropertyRights. It describes and probes the key players and the mostinfluential journal publications. While most literature reviews arequalitative, in many cases highly subjective and necessarily selective,this paper takes another course. By using Social NetworkAnalysis and the Co-Author Citation Approach it constructs aquantitative approach. The outcome is threefold. First, the workswith the most influence are identified, as are 9 sub-networks intowhich the Intellectual Property research splits. Second, the researchinstitutions and their networks are analyzed. This researchillustrates that the Intellectual Property research landscape isshaped by a handful of universities, the rest follow suit. Third, itis demonstrated that North America dominates the academic IntellectualProperty debate by far. Regions such as South Americaand Africa do not even appear in the body of knowledge. This papergives an overview of Intellectual Property research. Based onthe quantitative output further research questions can be formulated.