Despite being about wealth and about who owns and controls the new capital - knowledge the study of intellectual property rights has generally attracted little attention from students of contemporary global political economy. This study seeks to bring such study squarely within the field, by opening a window into the complex interactions and contests over intellectual property rules that continue to engage multiple players in various fora simultaneously. The outcomes of these contests are as yet unclear, but they certainly have the potential to alter the future shape mid direction of global economy, for better or for worse. We do not engage in speculations about such outcomes, but seek to point to the growing importance of the politics of intellectual property and trade rules. More specifically, this is a study on the 'how' and 'why' of the emergence of the current global intellectual property regime and the manner in which the interplay between global intellectual property and trade rules has played out in the area of global public health. We seek to offer a political economy approach to understanding and explaining the multifaceted contests between state and non-state actors that have been attempting to resolve the many tensions inherent in the intersection of these three issue-areas in ways which best satisfy their interests. However, this is but one area where actors and interests are clashing over intellectual property rules; our hope is that other studies will follow which will continue to shed light into these contests and help us better to understand how global (intellectual property) governance structures are made and remade over time.