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Pro-IP “Anarchists” and anti-IP Patent Attorneys

Update: For more update lists, see Classical Liberals and Anarchists on Intellectual Property.

Two sets that you would think are exceedingly rare. Over the years I’ve noticed when someone falls into either group. My notes are not comprehensive, to be sure, but here is what I’ve gathered so far.

As for the second category: I collected them previously here: Patent Lawyers Who Oppose Patent Law. They include me, my friend Tony Diehl, and a few others. However, to be honest, of everyone I’ve listed—as far as I know only Tony and I qualify as as (a) being actual practicing, registered patent attorneys who are also (b) completely opposed to the patent system. As far as I know we are the only two people in the whole world who actually understand IP and oppose it completely and on private property grounds. Everyone else either only understands IP incompletely (non-registered patent attorney) or is in favor of “reform” but not abolition or is against IP on leftish grounds. Well, two out of 7 billion people—that’s a start. I guess. But it’s always shocking to me someone can pose as a radical anti-state libertarian, and then turn around and argue for state-granted monopoly rights. Amazing.

As for the former. It’s always surprising to me when someone who claims to be an anarchist—and a libertarian anarchist, no less—still supports IP…. even though IP is a state-granted monopoly, requires the state, requires legislation, and is utterly incompatible with free markets, libertarian property rights, etc. Prominent examples include:

(I am not even including here non-anarchist and utilitarian libertarians, since so many of them have been horribly wrong on IP, namely Ayn Rand, Jan Helfeld, and … most others.)

Libertarians who were surprisingly good on IP before the Internet era include:

(In the post-1995/Internet era, more libertarians starting paying attention, and getting it mostly right, namely me, Roderick Long, Jeff Tucker, Sheldon Richman, and a few others—collected here.)

And honorable mentions:

For more, see: The Origins of Libertarian IP Abolitionism and The Four Historical Phases of IP Abolitionism.

  1. KOL 038 | Debate with Robert Wenzel on Intellectual Property. []
  2. KOL076 | IP Debate with Chris LeRoux ; Can you own ideas? Chris LeRoux debates Daniel Rothschild. []
  3.  “Locke’s Big Mistake: How the Labor Theory of Property Ruined Economics and Political Theory,” Liberty in the Pines Conference (March 2013) ; []
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To the extent possible under law, Stephan Kinsella has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to C4SIF. This work is published from: United States. In the event the CC0 license is unenforceable a  Creative Commons License Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License is hereby granted.