19 November 2009

Every Shadow of a Shade of an Idea...

Just so, 126 years later:

U.S. Supreme Court
Atlantic Works v. Brady, 107 U.S. 192 (1883)
Decided March 5, 1883
MR. JUSTICE BRADLEY delivered the opinion of the Court.
It was never the object of those laws to grant a monopoly for every trifling device, every shadow of a shade of an idea, which would naturally and spontaneously occur to [...]

29 October 2006

Stephan Kinsella, 'Against Intellectual Property'

For today's lecture, some libertarian thoughts on the problem of intellectual property from Stephan Kinsella.

I'm regularly exposed to libertarian ideas at places like Marginal Revolution and EconLog. I like a lot of the ideas, but I wouldn't describe myself as libertarian.
Kinsella wrote a paper called "Against Intellectual Property." I'm slowly making my way [...]

21 October 2006

5 Ways to Save on Your Monthly Software Rental Bill in the Year 2056

Originally published in Free Software Magazine, 9 October 2006. (With Diggage!)
Software bills got you down? Here at Intellectual Property Magazine (championing intellectual investment since 2012!), our studies show that the share of an average household's budget for software rental has increased from 10% to 23% from 2040 to 2056. Today our experts will share* [...]

6 October 2006

Thomas Jefferson on Patents and Freedom of Ideas

Started reading Unbounded Freedom and ran in to a great excerpt from a letter Thomas Jefferson wrote to Isaac McPherson in 1813 about the nature of ideas. It's not the first time I've run across it, and like my Ben Franklin quote it has seen a lot of use in patent discussions, but it's [...]