What is property?

Question 1

Rights in personal vs rights in rem?

Answer 1

• A right in personam is enforceable only against specific persons (usually personal).
  
  • A right to a payment is such a right. The creditor has the right to be paid, and the debtor has a corresponding duty to pay. They have a relationship called debt.
  • The debtor is the specific person against whom the creditor’s right to receive payment has a duty to pay.
• A right in rem always relates to a specific thing, such as an animal, a car, or a piece of land.
  
  • A right in rem is enforceable generally against others and not just against specific persons.
  • You have rights to possess and use the things you own, and any members of society are obliged not to interfere
    and the debtor is under the corresponding duty to pay. They have a relationship called debt.

Question 2

Assignable rights?

Answer 2

• Assignable right (wide): A right to something can be given away to someone else.
  Death, bankruptcy, wealth.

Question 3

Property in its many forms generally implies the right to use or enjoy, the right to exclude others, and the right to alienate.

Question 4

Rights and rem and rights in personal both require the same thing, what is it?

Answer 4

A corresponding duty. For rem it’s a duty of non-interference against the world with the thing in question like a book. For personam it’s a duty against one person in specific usually, normally to pay you in a debtor-creditor relationship.

Question 5

-Are all rights to things property rights?

Answer 5

• No.
• A concert ticket or bus pass could be a property right to that piece of paper (rem), however, the significance of that piece of paper in naming an assigned seat in a particular place at a particular time is seen as a license to be there which is a personam right (not property), not a rem.

Question 6

Is a Bank Account Property?

Answer 6

• Your bank account is not property to you, it is a right in personam to the bank itself who is the creditor and you are the debtor or vice versa in the bank going out of business.
  
  • Your bank account is an assignable right.
  • However your physical cash bills in a specific safety deposit box that you have in the bank are a form of bailment (borrowing your property).

Question 7

Is confidential information property? (Cadbury Schweppes)

Answer 7

• Confidential information is a well recognized species of property, especially in the commercial sense, but not necessarily intellectual property.
• There can be transferability in property rights such as a trade secret, they are not always property per say, but forming a contract will tell you to not compete in misusing this information.
  • This contractual right of confidential information can be enforced as a right in personam.
  • Confidential information itself can be enforced against the public which is a right in rem.

-If duties of confidence were imposed only on those who undertook them, then the corresponding rights would be rights in personam since they would be enforceable only against specific persons.

-If someone receives information and knows or ought to know that it is confidential, then a duty of confidence will be imposed on them.
-Right in rem.

-If confidential information ceases to be confidential (e.g., when it is published in a newspaper), there can be no further duties of confidence with respect to it, however you cuold still be liable for breach of a contract with this confidential information whether explicitly or implicitly implied.

Question 8

What things can be the subject of property rights?

Answer 8

-Land, goods, money, documents, intellectual property.