President Trump’s motto is “Make America Great Again.” To achieve this, we should recall what made America great in the first place. Our Founding Fathers recognized that robust property rights — both tangible and intellectual — form the cornerstone of…
SACRAMENTO — The issue of patents — the intellectual property rights granted to inventors that give them exclusive control over their invention — has long divided supporters of the free-market system. It’s always a contentious topic in libertarian circles, something…
SACRAMENTO — If you find yourself at a libertarian gathering (not usually recommended) and are a mischievous sort who wants to start a squabble that might lead to fisticuffs, don’t raise the usual hot-button issues of, say, the wisdom of…
Despite a recent high-profile court victory, Ed Sheeran isn’t in love with the shape of copyright law. In a case that has attracted international attention, the estate of the late Ed Townsend claimed that Sheeran unlawfully copied elements of “Let’s…
For trial lawyers, Big Pharma, and assorted other profiteers off American misery, the Supreme Court case Alice Corp. v. CLS Bank is like holy water thrown in the face of a vampire. They cannot abide exposure to it and will shrink…
Imagine the following scenario: You spend your life slaving away at building some ingenious new device in your garage. After years of painstaking work, testing, and sleepless nights, you finally produce your device, patent it, and take it to market….
The debate over patent reform, both in Congress, and in Washington proper, has reached a stalemate. Everyone on all sides seems to agree that the patent system is a great treasure of American constitutional law, and that a patent granted…
Patents are one of the most miraculous legal inventions of the modern age: with a stroke of a pen, an idea that can save lives, or move mountains, can become a source of prosperity not just for the world, but…
Picture eastern Texas, and your mind may conjure up images of cattle ranchers, chicken fried steaks, or maybe even a select few country artists. But if you ask people who work in the realm of patent policy, the images evoked…
