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The conventional defense of the patent system is that it is essential in order to stimulate creativity.   For example, in “ Don’t Believe the Hype “ (Feb. 2005, IP Law & Business ), patent attorneys John Benassi & Noel Gillespie conclude that our patent laws continue to “foster innovation.” This is so even though many observers believe our patent

The primary social evil of our time is lack of respect for self-ownership rights. It is what underlies both private crime and institutionalized crime perpetrated by the state. State laws, regulations, and actions are objectionable just because the state is claiming the right to control how someone’s body is to be used. When the state drafts a man

Like many libertarians, I initially assumed intellectual property (IP) was a legitimate type of property right. But I had misgivings from the start: there was just something too utilitarian and results oriented in Rand’s purportedly principled case for IP, and something too artificial about the state’s copyright and patent statutory

“Calls for abolition of the patent system — especially those coming from a principled, rights-based approach — are very unlikely to be adopted at the present time.” [This paper is the first of a two-part series. The concluding article is “ Reducing the Cost of IP Law “] Hardly a day passes when we do not hear of one patent abuse or another. [1]

[This article is based on a speech delivered at Mises University 2009 (July 30, 2009; audio ; video ).]   Most libertarians find some areas of libertarian theory more interesting than others. My own passion has always been rights theory and related areas, such as the theory of contracts, causation, and punishment. [1] Intellectual property (IP),

[This paper is the conclusion of a two-part series. The first article was “Radical Patent Reform Is Not on the Way.” ] Anti-Eating Mouth Cage  US Patent Issued in 1982 As I noted in Part 1 , there is a growing clamor for reform of patent (and copyright) law, due to the increasingly obvious injustices resulting from these intellectual property (IP)

Libertarian Papers was launched a year ago, in late January 2009. I assessed our first half-year a few months ago. At this time I’d like to explain how Libertarian Papers came to be. The timing is especially suitable, since Libertarian Papers was born one year ago today, in a 15-minute IM chat between Jeff Tucker and me. It was late Monday night,

[An earlier version of this article was published in the Freeman , September 1995. It was adapted from a longer essay in the Journal of Libertarian Studies .]   Libertarians and classical liberals have long sought to explain what sorts of laws we should have in a free society. But we have often neglected the study of what sort of legal system is

Like a submarine patent , the intellectual-property issue has lurked beneath the surface of libertarianism for decades. IP was for a long time largely assumed by most libertarians to be legitimate, a type of property right. This is because of the influence of Ayn Rand, one of the most influential of all modern libertarians, who was strongly

In previous decades libertarians viewed intellectual property as a boring and technical area of the law, the province of legal specialists. They also assumed it to be a legitimate, if arcane, type of property in a capitalist, free-market society. After all, it’s in the Constitution, and Ayn Rand blessed it. But we don’t ignore it anymore, and we