Rights to do, rights to prevent, and an intersected approach? Lessons from intellectual property, information control and oil and gas

This chapter explores IP and oil and gas frameworks particularly in the UK and in Canada, and the different approaches taken to information sharing and some litigation at national level and through Investor State Dispute Settlement. This chapter notes that the existence of clear goals of a regulatory system, an assertive regulator with robust enforcement powers, and industry support for new regulatory approaches may seem to have created oil and gas regimes which can prevail over IP rights when the two fields clash in respect of information of sharing and re-use. It is suggested that the two sets of decision makers are in fact taking a blinkered, or at least incomplete, approach to addressing this apparent battle of equals. This chapter then builds arguments which can have an impact on all regulatory and legislative actions to address a public goal when the response (properly viewed) involves more than one policy area and field of law, and also involve private rights.