Abstract: The conclusion of the Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) in 1994 established a minimum baseline for regulating access to technology and knowledge goods. This global regime of intellectual property rights has since been a contentious aspect of modern economic relations. It has been viewed by consumers around the world as a significant barrier to access to technology and associated knowledge goods, including stymieing opportunities for social and political engagement by citizens. Public disenchantment with intellectual property as a primary regulator of access to technology could be addressed by the explicit linkage of proprietary rights to a new welfare axis comprised of development aspirations, human rights norms, and liberty considerations. To the extent social norms that develop around new technologies facilitate positive returns recognized by these complementary legal regimes, intellectual property rights that are in tension with these regimes will likely continue to lose moral sway, making the future of the TRIPS Agreement far less stable and its minimum obligations more costly to enforce. Moreover, gaps in how formal law and social norms regulate technology are not easily captured by the rigid prescriptions of treaty provisions, and thus the TRIPS Agreement is far less capable of serving the important role of shaping contemporary approaches to access to technology. As technology continues to reach deep into the private lives of citizens, and to affect the capacity and trajectory of national development in less-advanced economies, the design and construction of formal laws around which technology is produced, disseminated, and used will have greater import if they purposefully accommodate other legal orders whose norms resonate powerfully in advancing stylized visions of societal progress and human well-being.