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 Cir. Feb. 2026) (nonprecedential), the Federal Circuit affirmed su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…]

Ash Navabi, former GMU econ grad student (see previous podcast discussion with him),¹ now a law student at Thomas Jefferson School of Law, sent me this presentation he gave in his copyright class: “This Week in Copyright: Copywrong? The Legal & Economic Case for the Abolition of Intellectual Property” (pptx; pdf). Heroic!

1. KOL198 | Intellectual Property as Limits on Property; Trade Secrets and Contract.  [↩]

Related:

• Update: The crank is making the rounds. Here he is on Eli Mazour‘s IP podcast Clause 8, Youtube: Inventor Gil Hyatt’s gift to America — will America accept it?¹

• re Mazour’s Clause 8 podcast, see also Attempts to Get on Mainstream IP Podcast and AIPLA Quarterly Journal Predictably Fail
• Patently Unreasonable: Hyatt’s Return to the Supreme Court and the Fight Over Prosecution Laches
• Kappos vs. Hyatt (Supreme Court, 2012)

In a recent podcast episode, Greenland, Guns, and Money, Richard Epstein predicts Trump’s use of tariffs under IEEPA might be nixed by the Supreme Court, and that he has suggested that if this happens he will find some other way to do it, but it’s not clear what.

There is a recent IPWatchdog podcast interview of Gil Hyatt, Pioneering AI Innovations and Legacy: A Conversation with Inventor Gil Hyatt / IPWatchdog Unleashed, by patent shill and blowhard-buffoon Gene Quinn, who has never met a patent he doens’t like (he has argued for a “patent stimulus plan”: “If we really want to get out of this economic downturn we need a Patent Stimulus Plan. … What we need to do is have President Obama issue an Executive Order directing the Patent Office to start allowing patents.” ).²

[continue reading…]

1. Shownotes:President Trump and Commerce Secretary Howard Lutnick pride themselves on being dealmakers and on making the kind of unconventional deals for America no one else could have gotten done. Gil Hyatt is offering them one that sounds like a no-brainer. However, the question remains whether that dealmaking reputation is enough to overcome thirty years of inertia from prior administrations focused on keeping any more of Hyatt’s patents from ever issuing.Hyatt is proposing to donate his foundational AI patents to the Pioneering AI Foundation, designed, in his telling, to give the U.S. government a new kind of leverage at the International Trade Commission (ITC) to use in negotiations with foreign countries. The concept aligns with the administration’s priorities and arrives at a moment when the administration’s biggest leverage tool — tariffs — has just been narrowed by the Supreme Court’s February ruling.When Hyatt was last on Clause 8 in 2019, he told the story of his role pioneering the microprocessor and the substantial licensing program he built without ever going to court. But much of that conversation was about what came next.

   In the mid-1990s, amid scrutiny of so-called “submarine patents,” the USPTO created what was later revealed as the SAWS program, which flagged applications from Hyatt and fellow independent inventor Jerome Lemelson and, in effect, kept any more of their applications from issuing as patents. Hyatt later won a unanimous Supreme Court decision against the USPTO in 2012 in litigation arising from that long-running dispute. But that did not lead to any broader resolution. The government kept fighting. More than a decade later, the battle still continues, with another cert petition now pending before the Supreme Court.

   None of that makes Hyatt an obvious candidate to be offering the U.S. government anything, let alone a gift.

   And yet that is exactly how he frames it: a gift to America, timed to the country’s 250th birthday. On the episode, Hyatt says the administration has “been considering our project for over a year now,” though he is still waiting to see whether it will move forward. As he tells it, the decision is now theirs.

   A Strategic Tool

   Hyatt explains that the foundation’s mission is to use intellectual property to “level the playing field” for American workers and American interests. Beyond providing leverage in negotiations, he describes a model in which market access could be conditioned on whether foreign manufacturers meet American standards for labor, human rights, and environmental protections — in other words, whether they are willing to play by rules comparable to those imposed on American companies.

   Why Give It Away?

   Asked why he would hand this to the same government that spent decades blocking his patents, Hyatt doesn’t hesitate:

   “America is the dream of immigrants. My parents were legal immigrants. They came over legally, over 100 years ago. And America gave us the dream life… I want to repay America.”

   Can this administration finally get it done?

   The offer is on the table. It aligns with the administration’s priorities just as its biggest leverage tool has been constrained.

   The question isn’t whether this administration will entertain it. By Hyatt’s account, they have been — for over a year. The real question is whether a dealmaker reputation is enough to close a deal no other administration has come close to making in thirty years.

   Hyatt says he is ready to sign.

   Will America accept the gift?

   The episode covers:

   • 00:23 — the ongoing battle with the USPTO
   • 02:44 — the Pioneering AI Foundation
   • 05:35 — using the ITC and trade agreements as leverage
   • 07:11 — human rights and labor unions: leveling the global playing field
   • 10:24 — AI in the classroom: the “super headstart” for children
   • 12:35 — relieving drudgery: AI as a catalyst for creative thinking
   • 14:27 — addressing skepticism: motives and financials
   • 16:16 — repaying the dream: the legacy of immigrant parents
   • 17:34 — advice for the next generation of inventors
   • 18:22 — final thoughts: destiny and helping America [↩]
   • A “Patent Stimulus” to End the Recession? [↩]

I often rail against IP because it impedes innovation.¹ As I wrote in one post,

Patent law distorts and impedes innovation. It makes us all poorer. There is no evidence that it does what the retarded Founders thought it would do—promote the progress of the useful arts (inventions)

… Patent law reduces innovation and impoverishes the human race. As I wrote elsewhere: [continue reading…]

1.  IP Answer Man: Death Toll of Patent Law; The Death Throes of Pro-IP Libertarianism. [↩]

Related:

• All-In Podcast Concerned But Confused about IP and AI Training
• Whereupon Grok admits it (and AI) is severely gimped by copyright law
• Libertarian and IP Answer Man: Artificial Intelligence and IP
• Copyright Thicket and President Trump’s AI Training Data Solution
• Copying, Patent Infringement, Copyright Infringement are not “Theft”, Stealing, Piracy, Plagiarism, Knocking Off, Ripping Off
• Stop calling patent and copyright “property”; stop calling copying “theft” and “piracy”
• All-In Podcast Concern over China and IP “Theft”
• Lacalle on China and IP “Theft”
• Bullard, “Is Intellectual Property Theft?”
• Patent trolls as mafioso (and that’s a compliment)

I woke up this morning to my daily NY Times news brief email, only to find embedded therein this propaganda, the “Stealing Isn’t Innovation” campaign, which is “a project of the Human Artistry Campaign, a global coalition of more than 180 groups around the world supporting responsible, ethical AI.” The letter’s A and I in the slogan are highlighted in blue to drive the point home—this is about killing AI. It’s a group of artists and other copyright whores who want to shakedown AI tech companies with the threat of killing it with copyright. [continue reading…]

Related

• Types of Intellectual Property
• IP Proponents Do Not Even Know The Difference Between Patent, Copyright, Trademark … 
• right to publicity/invasion of privacy
• The Rise Of A New Intellectual Property Category, Ripe For Trolling: Publicity Rights
• The Problem with Intellectual Property, n.9

As a friend told me, “I saw this article, and thought you might either be amused or horrified as congress attempts to use copyright law to solve problems caused by … copyright law.”

Trey Popp, Who Will Own Your Digital Twin?, The Pennsylvania Gazette (24 Dec 2025) [continue reading…]

Patent holders just hate any challenges to their state-granted patent monopolies.¹ They want their IP rights to be treated like “property rights,”² and never challenged, either administratively or in court, so that they can be “relied upon”³ and serve as more effective weapons to threaten and extort their victims.⁴ They also hate legislative proposals that would make it more difficult to engage in patent trolling,⁵ such as The Litigation Transparency Act of 2025⁶ or the more recent bill proposed by Representative Daryl Issa, The Protecting Third Party Litigation Funding from Abuse Act.⁷ [continue reading…]

1. US Inventor, INVENTOR RIGHTS RESOLUTION, which, in crayon, writes “The USPTO MUST NOT REVIEW AN ISSUED PATENT WITHOUT CONSENT OF THE INVENTOR.”  [↩]
2. The Structural Unity of Real and Intellectual Property; The “Ontology” Mistake of Libertarian Creationists; Objectivists: “All Property is Intellectual Property”; A Recurring Fallacy: “IP is a Purer Form of Property than Material Resources”. [↩]
3. Industry Opposition to Patent Challenges. [↩]
4. Patent trolls as mafioso (and that’s a compliment); “Investment Grade Patents are not for Rent Seeking … They are for business negotiations”; Hsieh and Mossoff on IP and Sewing Machines. [↩]
5. Patent Trolls, Bad Patents, and Incompetent Examiners are Not the Problem.  [↩]
6. Issa, House Colleagues Launch Reform of Third-Party Financed Civil Litigation, Issa Press Release (Feb. 7, 2025); H.R.1109 – Litigation Transparency Act of 2025. [↩]
7. H.R. 7015 (IH) – Protecting Third Party Litigation Funding From Abuse Act; Chad Hemenway, APCIA Backs Federal Bill to Require Litigation Funding Disclosure, Insurance Journal (Jan. 13, 2026).  [↩]

Related:

• A patent on patenting…

When I was practicing patent law with Schnader Harrison and then Duane Morris in Philadelphia, I was Editor-in-Chief/Founding member, PBA IP Law Section [archived] Newsletter, 1997–98.¹ In one issue (PBA IP Law Newsletter (Summer 1998)), I posted this: [continue reading…]

1. See also “Is Intellectual Property Legitimate?“, Pennsylvania Bar Association Intellectual Property Newsletter 1 (Winter 1998): 3; republished in the Federalist Society’s Intellectual Property Practice Group Newsletter, vol. 3, Issue 3 (Winter 2000) [Audio: KOL445]. [↩]