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Mike Masnick on Intellectual Property

By Troll Tracker

Mike Masnick of TechDirt has posted the first in what he promises to be a series exploring intellectual property. In the first installment, he explores the dialog between two of our founding fathers, Thomas Jefferson and James Madison, on the nature of intellectual property, and their concerns that too-strong intellectual property laws could lead to abuse. The compromise that they arrived upon was the now-familiar refrain from Article I, Section 8 of our Constitution:

The Congress shall have Power ... To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.

Mike queries whether the patent system we have today is always generating exclusive rights that "promote the progress of science." It will be fun to see where Mike goes with this.

Full post as published by Patent Troll Tracker on February 21, 2008 (boomark / email).