Patent Law

Derivative plagiarism doesn't fly

By Lawrence B. Ebert, Esq.

The death of influential, Nobel-winning economist Paul A. Samuelson led us to review his life and ideas. We discovered he was uncle to President Obama's top economic adviser, Lawrence Summers.

Atlantic interview. This June interview with Samuelson at the Atlantic Monthly site shows how sharp the 94-year-old was. On the influence of his work, he said, "every time some economics textbook writer sued another textbook writer for plagiarism, it never got anywhere because the judge would just say, 'it's all Samuelson lite.' " On his ideological rival Milton Friedman, he said, "I should tell you that I stayed on good terms with Milton for more than 60 years. But I didn't do it by telling him exactly everything I thought about him."

Full post as published by IPBiz on December 20, 2009 (boomark / email).