My article “ Intellectual Property and Libertarianism “ was published in the December, 2009 issue of Liberty ; the March 2010 issue features the following exchange in the “Letters” section.p> Philosophizing IP Thanks to Stephan Kinsella for questioning the justice of intellectual property (”Intellectual Property and Libertarianism,” December
No, not me. Michael F. Martin , a patent attorney with Drinker Biddle [now McDermott]. The March 2010 issue of Liberty (which also features a letters exchange regarding my December 2009 Liberty article, Intellectual Property and Libertarianism ) features the following guest reflection by Mr. Martin: Sane and sound — “The hallmark of sanity is to
potentia est ” (“knowledge is power”)–Francis Bacon’s famous expression. For thousands of years, the human standard of living was flat. It finally started significantly increasing with the Industrial Revolution –with the rise of capitalism (strong, systematic protection for property rights) and with the spread of technology and scientific
In Adam Mossoff in the WSJ , Objectivist Diana Hsieh admits IP is a “thorny” issue. Progress! The WSJ piece citing Mossoff notes: The Sewing Machine War was the first instance of what is today called a “patent thicket.” The disputes prevented Singer from selling his invention, and tensions ran high in and out of court: When Howe personally called
Cato’s Robert Levy argues that it is, in The moral and constitutional case for a right to gay marriage . He argues: Thomas Jefferson set the stage in the Declaration of Independence: “[T]o secure these Rights, Governments are instituted among Men.” The primary purpose of government is to safeguard individual rights and prevent some persons from
As discussed in previous posts, the state grants monopolies (patents and copyright) then penalizes companies for using (“abusing”) them, in contravention of state antitrust law–so that there is a “tension” between these state laws.[1] (And of course the state exempts its own monopoly powers from antitrust regulations, and partially exempts the IP
[See Update here .] As noted by Mike Masnick on Techdirt (post reprinted below), due to the monopoly granted by patent (yes, it is a monopoly ), people are literally dying because Fabrazyme is in short supply and the sole, monopolistic manufacturer, Genzyme, can’t make enough quickly enough–and no one else is permitted to make it due to the
In response to my Reducing the Cost of IP Law , my friend and ex-colleague (and mentor) Steve Mendelsohn , a patent lawyer in Philadelphia, wrote me the following. N.B.: Steve is not a libertarian but is honest and smart, unlike patent shills (he’s also an excellent patent attorney, if you need one). Here’s an edited version of his comments,
As I noted in Ideas Are Free: The Case Against Intellectual Property , statists used to be much more honest. The federal government used to a Dept. of War . In 1947, its named was chagned to the Dept. of Army of the “New Military Establishment,” and in 1949, to the Department of Defense. Europeans are usually more honest than Americans. Socialists
As a recent column in the Wall Street Journal reminds us, online freedom is jeopardized in the name of “net neutrality” ( The FCC’s Threat to Internet Freedom ). This is just another case of the state re-labeling things to sound benign but that are really invasions of liberty and property rights–another good example being use of the term
What is the Mises Institute?
The Mises Institute is a non-profit organization that exists to promote teaching and research in the Austrian School of economics, individual freedom, honest history, and international peace, in the tradition of Ludwig von Mises and Murray N. Rothbard.
Non-political, non-partisan, and non-PC, we advocate a radical shift in the intellectual climate, away from statism and toward a private property order. We believe that our foundational ideas are of permanent value, and oppose all efforts at compromise, sellout, and amalgamation of these ideas with fashionable political, cultural, and social doctrines inimical to their spirit.