Related:

• Pharmaceutical Shills and Think Tank Corruption: Sally Pipes’s The World’s Medicine Chest: How America Achieved Pharmaceutical Supremacy―and How to Keep It
• Intellectual Property and Think Tank Corruption

I’ve pointed out before how many allegedly free market groups are pro-patent (and pro-IP in general), e.g. the Federalist Society, Cato, Independent Institute, and others.¹ As I wrote previously,

I’ve learned from reliable sources connected with various free market think tanks around the world that various important companies, in particular pharmaceutical, have become “supporters” of such think tanks–provided, of course, that the think tank supports intellectual property rights. Could this be one reason many free market think tanks are supportive of IP despite a mounting case against it?

I wonder if this is one reason for some of Cato’s pro-patent positions.²

A friend suggested Reason is also influenced by pharmaceutical donors, send me a Grok report that says [continue reading…]

1. Pharmaceutical Shills and Think Tank Corruption: Sally Pipes’s The World’s Medicine Chest: How America Achieved Pharmaceutical Supremacy―and How to Keep It.  [↩]
2. Intellectual Property and Think Tank Corruption. [↩]

Some of these linked from 6 talks about problems with patents (Dec. 10, 2012). The links were bad but here is what I found at TED:

Johanna Blakley, Lessons from fashion’s free culture, TEDxUSC (April 2010)

A songwriting battle with my AI clone, Jason “Poo Bear” Boyd, Elise Hu | TEDNext 2025 • November 2025 [continue reading…]

Related

• Whereupon Grok admits it (and AI) is severely gimped by copyright law
• Libertarian and IP Answer Man: Artificial Intelligence and IP
• Patent Trolls, Bad Patents, and Incompetent Examiners are Not the Problem
• Gary North on the 3D Printing Threat to Patent Law
• The Rise of 3D Printing pushes the State closer to the Absurd Logical Conclusions of Intellectual Property and Copyright
• IP in a World Without Scarcity
• Pharmaceutical “Printers” and Patents
• The IP War on 3D Printing Begins
• Copyrighting all the melodies to avoid accidental infringement | Damien Riehl
• Libertarian and Lockean Creationism: Creation As a Source of Wealth, not Property Rights; Hayek’s “Fund of Experience”; the Distinction Between Scarce Means and Knowledge as Guides to Action
• Copying, Patent Infringement, Copyright Infringement are not “Theft”, Stealing, Piracy, Plagiarism, Knocking Off, Ripping Off

[continue reading…]

Related

• Classical Liberals, Libertarians, Anarchists and Others on Intellectual Property

Nozick was bad on IP: he was confused and weakly in favor of some form of patent law; very diletanttish reasoning, as often is the case for Nozick. See William Fisher, “Theories of Intellectual Property” (2), in Stephen Munzer, ed., New Essays in the Legal and Political Theory of Property (Cambridge University Press, 2001), text at n.5. Also Robert Nozick, Anarchy, State, and Utopia (Oxford: Basil Blackwell, 1974), p. 182: “independent inventors, upon whom the burden of proving independent discovery may rest, should not be excluded from utilizing their own invention as they wish (including selling it to others).” On Nozick’s dilettantism and “razzle-dazzle,” see Kinsella, Afterword to Hoppe’s The Great Fiction, Second Expanded Edition, and Hoppe, Murray N. Rothbard and the Ethics of Liberty. [continue reading…]

The author recently sent me this.

Fuzz: The Permissionless Patronage Protocol

Abstract: We propose a permissionless patronage protocol. A publisher shares a work and a public address. A subscriber contributes to the publisher through a distributor. The contribution is recorded and can be verified in a trust-minimized way. The cost for both the subscriber and the publisher to switch between distributors is zero.

Full post below. [continue reading…]

Related:

• The Problem with Intellectual Property
• Patent Trolls, Bad Patents, and Incompetent Examiners are Not the Problem
• Haman Nature: None of us hate patent trolls nearly enough. In fact, all of IP has serious flaws that need fixing – or abolishing
• Patent troll (wikipedia)
• NPE Showcase – Leigh Rothschild
• Valve Corporation v. Rothschild et al, No. 2:2023cv01016 – Document 56 (W.D. Wash. 2024) (Justia)
• Washington State patent troll prevention act
  • Federal court rules Washington state anti-patent troll law does not violate First Amendment
  • See Grok summary (below)

Gemini summary from the Asmongold video: [continue reading…]

From Bitcoin magazine. I like his term “legacy fiat intellectual property rights”.

From Patently-O. Typical. The state protects its contractors from patent infringement liability and its only liability is to pay compensation. It cannot be enjoined. See 28 U.S. Code § 1498. Of course the whole thing makes no sense: the FedGov grants patents to applicants; this impedes innovation and drives up prices for consumers; and if the patentee sues the FedGov it harms the taxpayers again by printing money and giving it to the patentee.

by Dennis Crouch

The War Industry (formerly Defense) heavily invests in new technology and patents. But, we see very few patent infringement lawsuits. A key reason is 28 U.S.C. § 1498. That statute channels patent infringement claims involving government-authorized work away from private defendants and into the U.S. Court of Federal Claims, with the United States as the sole defendant (and a reasonable royalty as the only remedy). For government contractors and subcontractors, § 1498 operates as a powerful shield: if the infringing activity was performed “for the Government” and “with the authorization or consent of the Government,” the patent holder’s only remedy is a compensation action against the United States. The contractor walks free. This design reflects a deliberate policy choice. The government pays heavily for technology development with taxpayer dollars and, in exchange, retains control as the key point person – and it allows the administration to resolve patent disputes as it sees fit.

In Arlton v. AeroVironment, Inc., No. 2021-2049 (Fed. Cir. Feb. 2026) (nonprecedential), the Federal Circuit affirmed su

Read more>>

Related:

• The Overwhelming Empirical Case Against Patent and Copyright
• Fritz Machlup, An Economic Review of the Patent System 79-80 (1958)
• The Economist on the American Patent System

Fritz Machlup”Review of Monopolies and Patents, A Study of the History and Future of thePatent Monopoly. by Harold G. Fox,” The Journal of Economic History, Vol. 8, No. 2 (Nov., 1948), pp. 215–217.

Of course, not online. I would say ironically, but unforunately it’s not ironic anymore; it’s routine and pathetic: a paper by a patent skeptic reviewing the work of an IP promoter, but paywalled and hidden away due to copyright. Copyright is censorship at work–and preventing the spread of criticism of copyright and patent! Grok’s summary: [continue reading…]

• Classical Liberals, Libertarians, Anarchists and Others on Intellectual Property

See Marcus Willaschek, “‘This Is Mine’: On Intellectual and Other Property,” in Kant: A Revolution in Thinking, Peter Lewis, trans. (Cambridge, Massachusetts and London, England: The Belknap Press of Harvard University Press, 2025) (sample; Scribd).

Note the opening quote to ch. 12: “The value of money is . . . only indirect. One cannot enjoy money itself or make immediate use of it in any way. Yet it is still a means which, among all things, has the greatest usefulness.”¹ [continue reading…]

1. [“In the case of Kant’s principal work, the Critique of Pure Reason, following the common practice in the literature on Kant, references are given in the form “A . . . ,” “B . . . ,” and “A . . . / B . . .” (e.g., A xii; B406; A365/B390). Here, “A” refers to the page numbers of the first edition of the Critique, published in 1781, while “B” references the second edition, of 1787.”] Ak. 6:287, The Metaphysics of Morals (1797), in Kant, Practical Philosophy, ed. and trans. Mary J. Gregor, CWK [The Cambridge Edition of the Works of Immanuel Kant in Translation, 16 vols., Paul Guyer and Allen W. Wood, general eds. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992–2016)] (1996), 435. [↩]

@NSKinsella

Last 30 min touches on IP and comments you have made. Citing he saw no argument a couple times https://t.co/cYVyJscWRi

— CHUCKun$ (@CHUCKunMONEY) January 31, 2026

This tweet rattled my cage. I listened to enough of it to see it’s just another pro-IP engineer repeating the standard bogus arguments. Ayn Rand Fan Club 99: Bob Zeidman on Forensics, IP, AI, Election Fraud & Poker

[continue reading…]

[From my Webnote series]

Related:

• Let’s Make Copyright Opt-OUT
• Copyright is very sticky!

Okay, maybe linguistically it has become verbicized, even though this practice gives rise to false implications (such as hypocrisy: Kinsella, if you don’t believe in copyright, why did you copyright your book? (( KOL470 | Intellectual Property & Rights: Ayn Rand Fan Club 92 with Scott Schiff (“This is my book. It came out two years ago. This has all my arguments in it. Legal Foundations. You said it’s not copyrighted. Well, it’s copyrighted because all copyright is automatic, but I have a Creative Commons Zero license on there. So, I’ve made it public domain as much as the law will allow me to make it. Yeah, I’ve had three or four smartasses say things like, “This is you, there’s so many bad arguments for IP.” They’ll say, “Oh, well, Kinsella.” First, I get the hypocrisy argument. “Oh, you’re a practicing patent lawyer, so you’re a hypocrite.” I’m like, well, so basically, the only people you want to complain about IP law are people who don’t know anything about it?”); Let’s Make Copyright Opt-OUT; Copyright is very sticky!; Are anti-IP patent attorneys hypocrites?; “Oh yeah? How would like it if I copy and publish your book under my name?!”: On IP Hypocrisy and Calling the Smartasses’ Bluffs; “The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism” (Mises Daily 2010) (from Darcy: “Communism and opposition to property rights is hardly a new idea. [continue reading…]

Related:

• The Problem with Intellectual Property
• Patent Trolls, Bad Patents, and Incompetent Examiners are Not the Problem
• The Overwhelming Empirical Case Against Patent and Copyright

Adam Haman of Haman Nature: None of us hate patent trolls nearly enough. In fact, all of IP has serious flaws that need fixing – or abolishing.

Jan. 26, 2026

I used to think Intellectual Property (IP) was valid. Why wouldn’t I? After all, my business school insisted patents were vitally necessary to incentivize production and innovation. Even Ayn Rand, my gateway to libertarianism, insisted IP was a moral necessity, saying:

[continue reading…]