It does not make any difference, whether someone has some sort of idea, method, musical composition etc. that he wants protected and monopolized through force.

Imagine someone trying to monopolize a cooking receipt; or the idea and method of sexual reproduction in the species homo sapiens…

Or imagine someone “inventing” a hamburger. Now think about this person trying to prevent other persons replicating that hamburger with some gizmo in the distant future: What kind of right do you think he has to stop others doing that by force?

Nobody is forced to give away his original idea, method etc.

But if he is giving it away, than it is the same situation as someone abandoning real property. Mr. Constitution (Thomas Jefferson) knew that. And you are assumed to be standing on his shoulders (remember: “standing on the shoulders of giants”).

“If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of everyone, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me. That ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man, and improvement of his condition, seems to have been peculiarly and benevolently designed by nature, when she made them, like fire, expansible over all space, without lessening their density at any point, and like the air in which we breathe, move, and have our physical being, incapable of confinement or exclusive appropriation. Inventions then cannot, in nature, be a subject of property.” – Thomas Jefferson

Why should someone have the right to control your thoughts and your (usage of your) property against your will?

Just because someone went earlier to some “bureau of the state” and they assured him, that he was the first person “coming up” with an idea? Thats ridiculous and has nothing to do with righteousness and property rights. Thats just some sort of getting a bureaucratical privilege (like a “privilege” to “own” slaves).

Do some of you really think that way? Then you are not categorically different to other leftists/monopolists in time an space…

How did inventions happen before the creation of the patent office? Guaranteed profits are anti-market.
They are morally wrong, and economically destructive. Patents, rather than causing innovation, stifle it. If the law prevents anyone from competing with me I have no need to improve my product. I can turn out the same thing year after year.

The Industrial Revolution did not begin when Watt invented the steam engine. It began when his patent expired and an entire steam engine industry was allowed to form.

The MM’s were completely “free” to not use Rambus’ revolutionary inventions in their chips (and still are today), and instead could have continued using the far inferior chips they had been using. Rambus didn’t hold a gun to their heads or anything. Heck, they weren’t even allowed to present at JEDEC.

The computer industry FREELY allowed themselves to be subject to Rambus’ royalty rates by using (stealing) their technology.

#1. “I am not aware that the latter (memory manufacturers illegally colluding in price fixing against rambus products) occurred”
— this is a direct quote from micron vp linda turner’s june 2001 email that is in evidence: “…We want DDR to explode into the marketplace so have actually been requesting Infineon, Samsung and Hynix to lower their DDR pricing to help it become a standard (and drive Rambus away completely)…”

#2. “libertarians of course oppose antitrust law and do not believe there is anything wrong with price-fixing or collusion” – well, there you go again

#3. “patents are an unjust monopoly privilege granted by the state” – so in your world how do inventions ever happen?…how does technology advance?…would a cancer drug ever be researched?…anyone developing something new is just a philanthropist?

I am not aware that the latter occurred. But if it did, libertarians of course oppose antitrust law and do not believe there is anything wrong with price-fixing or collusion.

As for the former, patents are an unjust monopoly privilege granted by the state to certain applicants for this privilege. It gives patentees a bludgeon to threaten other companies. Making the bludgeon a bit less dangerous to others is not “stealing” anything from them. To refer to this as “stealing” patents presupposes the legitimacy of patent rights and the federal government itself.

So, were you in on the three “shred days” held at Rambus headquarters on the eve of litigation? Or did you buy their stock after they destroyed the evidence of their wrongdoing?

Just because Rambus has gotten away with breaking the law doesn’t mean they’re in the right. It just means the courts are incompetent. Except for Judge Payne in Virgnia. After he concluded that Rambus destroyed evidence, Rambus quickly settled with Infineon. Rambus doesn’t like to talk about that, they’d rather talk about the imaginary “conspiracy” against them.

Just ignore the tired rantings of the Rambus stockholders who feel the need to defecate on every post in the blogosphere that might show even a hint of disagreement with Rambus’ attempts to gain a monopoly on the computer memory market.

The Patent Office vs. FTC battles are mildly interesting, but at the end of the day we all know how incompetent the PTO is at examining patents. The fact that a company like Rambus, who doesn’t own a memory fabrication facility, and doesn’t know how to do anything but draft patent applications (since they don’t make any product) may, through government fiat, become a monopolist over the entire computer memory industry. If that is a “free market” then any notion of capitalism is truly dead in this country.

Above Oliva writes, “Stephan Kinsella’s defense of the FTC’s unconstitutional acts and attacks on individual rights is a testament to his intellectual dishonesty and lack of morality. He is one reason (among many) that I am proud to say that I am no longer a libertarian nor a supporter of the Mises Institute.” What a bizarre comment.

I didn’t defend the FTC’s actions in this case. My position is simply that it does not violate a patent holder’s rights when the state that issues him this false monopoly privilege limits the scope of that false monopoly privilege.

I would also add that not only is the FTC unconstitutional, but most of federal law is. Sure. But constitutionality is not really that relevant, for us libertarians. The patent system is constitutional, but that does not justify it.

I find it utterly bizarre that Mr. Oliva would declare me an “enemy” (as he did–for the second time now–in email), or disassociate with the Mises Institute, because of my very civil post and a possible disagreement between us on a particular libertarian issue. To defame me as being “dishonest” and “immoral” for having a different opinion from him is irresponsible and itself immoral.

Below I reprint my comment on the Investor Village forum:

Mr. Oliva has now twice declared me an “enemy” because I … disagree with him on a couple of issues. I don’t understand this way of interacting, but to each his own.

To be clear: as I am a practicing, registed patent attorney I am well aware of what patent rights are, and how they are obtained and used.

I am also a radical libertarian. As such I certainly oppose anti-trust law, which is utterly evil. There is nothing wrong with natural “monopolies”, and the state has no right to interfere with any voluntary arrangement on the market. In fact the only real monopolies are state-granted ones, which is one reason I oppose the state itself and its various monopolies; and it’s why I oppose the state’s granting of monopoly rights to private companies–namely, patent and copyright. Therefore, I oppose the state granting artificial IP rights which are not genuine property rights but which actually undermine real property rights. (I’ve published on all this a great deal — my libertarian related writing is at http://www.StephanKinsella.com/publications.)

When the state issues false rights, and then finds ways to choke them back and attach strings to them, it should not be a surprise. This is yet another drawback of relying on or having the state be involved in the market.

In my post, I took no position as to whether Rambus is guilty of what the FTC alleges. I made two general points which do not rely on making this assumption. First, it is good when patent rights are weakened. If the state does not grant to Rambus a monopoly which can be used to shut down competitors, but which can only be used to extract “reasonable royalties” from victims in the market, then this is good. It does not matter what internal squabbling inside the state results in the state choking back patent rights.

Second, I made the general comment that I find it despicable when private companies get in bed with the state and use state monopoly power in deceptive ways when they are part of standards-setting organizations. This is fairly common, and I think it’s bad. When this happens, I certainly do not shed tears over these companies having their patent rights choked back a bit.

Whether this did indeed happen in the Rambus case I do not know, nor did I state an opinion about this. Several people seem to have a passionate opinion that Rambus did nothing wrong. Well, other than trying to obtain patent monopolies from the state and fight to be free to use them to sue other, innocent companies, that is. They may well be right. I have no dog in this fight.

The FTC alleges that this was a case involving

“a scheme by one SSO member to obtain monopoly power by deceptively circumventing rules that were intended to prevent such an outcome. The case has broad implications for the ability of antitrust law to protect against “hold-up” by patent owners who acquire market power by engaging in deception or other exclusionary conduct in the standard-setting process.

“Respondent Rambus, after joining an SSO known as the Joint Electron Device Engineering Council (“JEDEC”), participated in proceedings in which JEDEC members debated which technologies to select for proposed industry standards for a widely-used type of computer memory. From the outset, Rambus worked deliberately to subvert JEDEC’s standard-setting work. Rambus concealed its patent interests in technologies JEDEC was considering and–using information that it gained in standard-setting proceedings–filed amendments to its pending patent applications. Ultimately, JEDEC – not knowing about Rambus’s patent interests – incorporated Rambus technologies into standards that were implemented by nearly all of the computer memory market.

After instituting administrative proceedings and reviewing a voluminous record, the FTC found that, but for Rambus’s deception, either (1) JEDEC would have selected alternative technologies, or (2) JEDEC – before adopting the standards – would have required Rambus to agree to license its patents to users of the standards on “reasonable and non-discriminatory” (“RAND”) terms, as mandated by JEDEC rules.”

Is this true? I don’t know. It rings true to me, but it could very well be that the FTC is inept or corrupt here. The same could be true of the federal courts involved in this matter. They are all just agencies of a criminal state.

Anyway, I oppose both antitrust law and patents. The FTC is an abomination, as is the patent office. Most of the people getting upset about the Rambus case and my comments are apparently pro-patent. But anyone who is pro-patent has no grounds to whine–to be pro-patent is to maintain that the federal government–clearly a criminal organization–is legitimate. But if you legitimize the federal government, you have no right to whine about other agencies and laws it will predictably create, such as the FTC and anti-trust law. The only consistent position is to oppose both antitrust law and patent law–and to deny the federal government legitimacy.

In this light, I respectfully submit that Steven’s position against private property and support of antitrust is properly viewed as a step back toward savagery, albeit today’s law-school, lawyer/hack variety.

I will at least give Charles Wright credit. He’s the only copyright apologist in this thread who even attempted a principled argument for IP as a genuine property right. All the others just asserted it as a self-evident truth.

Murray Rothbard warned long ago of the perils of utilitarian property rights theory (i.e., defending all de jure “property rights” without any regard to issues of legitimacy). And Karl Hess stated that libertarians don’t automatically defend all that is called “property,” as such.

IP, while formally a property right, is a “property” in the right to perform a particular operation and prohibit all others from doing so. What’s more, unlike genuine (i.e., tangible) property rights, the defense of IP requires the invasion of others’ genuine property rights. My defense of my own legitimate, tangible property follows automatically from the act of possession. Defense of IP, on the other hand, requires an intrusive surveillance state, legislative DRM mandates, and the like, to limit the technical features of others’ hardware and to invade their space and make sure it’s not being used in a particular way.

You can’t enforce IP, any more than drug laws, without a police state.

Libertarians who defend everything that is called “property” without any regard to legitimacy or justice in acquisition are basically saying: “OK, no stealing, starting… NOW!”

IP is not property, it is theft.

You are the first self described libertarian I have ever heard arguing for rent control.

Clearly a government granted monopoly is not covered by any libertarian theory of property rights.

If you don’t know anything about the Rambus case, why post anything? If you think it’s important, why not investigate?

Rambus was not allowed to present to Jedec, so how did they help define a standard?

The memory manufacturers knew what Rambus had, since it had previously been disclosed to them. Their whole purpose in getting Rambus to Jedec was for an excuse to steal their property, as they have done successfully (to the extent that they haven’t been made to pay..yet) ever since.

This has all been documented. Libertarians should respect property rights and facts. Please issue a retraction of your post after you have looked at them.

You must be the only person on the planet who holds such mutually exclusive beliefs!

Next time you catch anthrax who ya gonna call, the FTC or the inventors of Cipro?!

You sadly, badly confused man! You’ve been spending so much time reading FTC anti-trust sci-fi that your brain has turned to mush. There’s a cure for that …. but it’s patented, so “no zoop for you”!

Dave