Chapter 10 identifies 21 variants of the good-faith purchase doctrine, which are often different combinations of several key factors. That said, none of the 21 schemes are the most efficient. Among the forms of good-faith purchase doctrine currently in use, the market overt rule comes closest to ex ante efficiency because original owners, merchant dealers, and consumers all have incentives to spend close to optimal costs on verification and prevention, and the movables in question are more likely to be in the hands of higher valuers. Drawing on mechanism design literature, Chapter 10 argues that when both an original owner and a consumer are non-negligent, the two parties can be assigned 50% shares of the movable in question, and an ensuing internal auction between them can ex post tease out who values the resource more. This internal auction design is inexpensive to administer.

Chapter 3 covers theoretical issues surrounding the nature of a “license” of IP and how it compares to similar rights of usage in the context of real and personal property. It considers whether, as some courts have held, a license is a covenant not to sue, or a property right with more substantial ties to the underlying IP rights. It next addresses the law governing IP transactions, including state contract law, property law, the Uniform Commercial Code and federal common law. It concludes with a discussion of the effects of transfers of IP on underlying license rights.