In this paper, I analyze links between the notions of production, intellectual property and culture. Starting at the articulations among inventor and invention, I show some problems about the category of intellectual property, highlighting dualities of the Western thought. I emphasize three tensions for analyzing intellectual property issues in anthropology, especially between material culture and intangible goods; continuities and ruptures on intellectual and cultural property; and the dissolution of multiplicity in the "public vs. private" dichotomy. An ethnographic case-study is presented, carried out within organic smallholders from the West of Santa Catarina, Brazil. In this case, I discuss their collective experiences associated to a set of problems they face while dealing with "modern" agriculture. The paper explores the grammar which operates in their lives and has connections to the intellectual property regimes. The intention is to show that those are some emblems in the way capitalism renew and (de)constitute experience.
commodity; experience; gift; intellectual property