Mises Search

My attention was recently called to Tibor Machan’s paper “Self-Ownership and the Lockean Proviso” ( working paper version ), which will be in his book The Promise of Liberty (Lexington, 2009). As noted in the Abstract , the paper argues as follows: Locke’s defense of private property rights includes what is called a proviso--”the Lockean

In Troll Tracker Lands Job Fighting Patent Trolls! , I noted the defamation suits filed against “Troll Tracker,” aka Rick Frenkel, by two Texas lawyers, in the aftermath of Frenkel’s identity being revealed, after bounties put up by one of the subjects of his criticism, patent attorney Ray Niro. (Whew! It’s convoluted, but all you need to know is

I just received an ominous (but informative) update from my company’s excellent outside employment lawyer ( Trey Wood , of Alaniz and Schraeder ), regarding the mis-named “ Employee Free Choice Act “. The EFCA, as one commentor notes here , “should rightly be called the Employee No Choice Act. It will abolish NLRB elections and allow unions to

Sheldon Richman has a great “TGIF” [”The Goal Is Freedom,” but released on a Friday--get it?] column out today, Intellectual ‘Property’ Versus Real Property: What Are Copyrights and what do they mean for Liberty? . For a very short column, it’s packed with great insights. Admirably, Richman focuses on justice rather than more utilitarian concerns

On GMO patent infestation , Kent Hastings comments on my IP views and those of J. Neil Schulman. Schulman responded: My article “Informational Property: Logorights” begins by specifically disclaiming any state grants of monopoly. The concept stands or falls on its natural-property-rights arguments. Neither Samuel Edward Konkin III or Stephan

I previously posted “ On J. Neil Schulman’s Logorights “; Schulman and I recently had an interesting exchange in the comments section of the cross-post on my blog. The original post and the exchange are appended below. On GMO patent infestation , Kent Hastings comments on my IP views and those of J. Neil Schulman. Schulman responded: My article

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

I’ve disagreed before with J. Neil Schulman on IP issues — see Kinsella v. Schulman on Logorights and IP . Here’s an edited version of a query I put to him on Facebook this morning: Neil, in your Logorights article , you say (if you’ll forgive me copying your pattern): if you think creation isn’t essential to the origin of property–then compose

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

Defenders of patents commonly say they are against innovators’ ideas being “stolen” or “plagiarized.” This implies that patents simply permit an innovator to sue those who copy his idea. This position betrays either disingenuity or ignorance about patent law. Let me explain. Under copyright law , someone who independently creates an original work