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Hard to take someone who calls himself an "Austro-Anarchist Libertarian Legal Theor[ist]" and went to a law school I've never heard of (note: I am a law studen

by d4ft 17y ago

Hard to take someone who calls himself an "Austro-Anarchist Libertarian Legal Theor[ist]" and went to a law school I've never heard of (note: I am a law student now) seriously. From a legal perspective, this guy's political biases show through. Editor of the liberatarian papers? Check. In the end, I thought it was a long article that is 1) fanciful and 2) a rehash of prior ideas.

muerdeme 17y ago
Why exactly does Kinsella's political philosophy matter? He is upfront about what he believes, so I don't think he's trying to deceive anyone. I also don't think that his political orientation means anything "from a legal perspective." Meaningful patent reform would almost certainly take place in Congress, not in the courts. Also, although you may still believe that his conclusions are fanciful, I think Kinsella is actually trying to be practical. Instead of arguing that IP shouldn't exist at all, he is advocating specific reforms that he believes would reduce the net costs of our patent system to society. I don't find his suggestions fanciful, because the US has already moved in the direction Kinsella advocates for at least patent publications.
- d4ft 17y ago
  I'm sorry I got to this so late. I realize noone will probably read this, and I only stumbled upon because I have had a few beers and was browsing old posts. In any case, I have a couple qualms. First, political philosophy does matter. Patents is about maximizing "progress" in the useful arts and sciences. Thus, depending on what you believe politically, you will have different views about how to accomplish this. Further, in reality, most patent reform does take place in courts. For instance, the Supreme Court mandated the processing of patent appeals in the federal circuit. Why? Because this way we could have a fairly uniform set of decisions from a fairly specialized court about what the law means. Much like corporate law in DE, one could consider a "common law" approach, whereby the courts would attempt to find a set of laws that would best promote the goals described above. In Federal Circuit jurisprudence, there have been many attempts to reconcile and improve the patent system but they have been reluctant to make broad changes like those described in the article. The reasoning goes that the courts are afraid (I think with good reason) about what might happen. I believe this is one contributing reason. Another might be that the court is fairly conservative (not a lot of free market easterbrook-posner type guys). I do agree however that large scale reform would necessitate legislative action, and perhaps some of the authors points would require this. Nonetheless, I think there is about 0% chance that many of these changes happen via the legislature. Examining the past, much, if not all the change, after the patent act (which was passed in I think 1952), has been judicially mandated and described. Legislators dont want to touch this for the same reason. The system works ok (not great), other countries copy us, and if we change it, who knows whats going to happen. Maybe this is a little bit of a rant, and I apologize for being terse in my initial description. I do believe though, that the author does himself a disservice by taking describing himself in the way he does, because if he was proposing a unique and passable patent reform, it would be hard for 1) politicians, 2) academics, and 3) legal professionals to take him seriously. Thanks for reading, assuming anyone makes it this far!
kiba 17y ago
He is a practicing patent lawyer. I doubt a patent lawyer would be so crazy to argue against a system that give him his job without good reasons.
camccann 17y ago
I didn't vote you down, and please don't read this as an attack, it's an honest question: Yes, he obviously has a strong opinion on the matter, because it's a direct and obvious consequence of his ethical worldview. Is this really a bad thing? Do you see a distinction between "political bias" and "ethical belief"? These aren't necessarily issues with a single objective answer, and I don't understand the tendency to dismiss ethical stances as being "political" or "impractical", typically in favor of some ambiguously "pragmatic" status-quo. How would you rather see things work?

by d4ft 17y ago

muerdeme 17y ago

Why exactly does Kinsella's political philosophy matter? He is upfront about what he believes, so I don't think he's trying to deceive anyone. I also don't think that his political orientation means anything "from a legal perspective." Meaningful patent reform would almost certainly take place in Congress, not in the courts. Also, although you may still believe that his conclusions are fanciful, I think Kinsella is actually trying to be practical. Instead of arguing that IP shouldn't exist at all, he is advocating specific reforms that he believes would reduce the net costs of our patent system to society. I don't find his suggestions fanciful, because the US has already moved in the direction Kinsella advocates for at least patent publications.

d4ft 17y ago
I'm sorry I got to this so late. I realize noone will probably read this, and I only stumbled upon because I have had a few beers and was browsing old posts. In any case, I have a couple qualms. First, political philosophy does matter. Patents is about maximizing "progress" in the useful arts and sciences. Thus, depending on what you believe politically, you will have different views about how to accomplish this. Further, in reality, most patent reform does take place in courts. For instance, the Supreme Court mandated the processing of patent appeals in the federal circuit. Why? Because this way we could have a fairly uniform set of decisions from a fairly specialized court about what the law means. Much like corporate law in DE, one could consider a "common law" approach, whereby the courts would attempt to find a set of laws that would best promote the goals described above. In Federal Circuit jurisprudence, there have been many attempts to reconcile and improve the patent system but they have been reluctant to make broad changes like those described in the article. The reasoning goes that the courts are afraid (I think with good reason) about what might happen. I believe this is one contributing reason. Another might be that the court is fairly conservative (not a lot of free market easterbrook-posner type guys). I do agree however that large scale reform would necessitate legislative action, and perhaps some of the authors points would require this. Nonetheless, I think there is about 0% chance that many of these changes happen via the legislature. Examining the past, much, if not all the change, after the patent act (which was passed in I think 1952), has been judicially mandated and described. Legislators dont want to touch this for the same reason. The system works ok (not great), other countries copy us, and if we change it, who knows whats going to happen. Maybe this is a little bit of a rant, and I apologize for being terse in my initial description. I do believe though, that the author does himself a disservice by taking describing himself in the way he does, because if he was proposing a unique and passable patent reform, it would be hard for 1) politicians, 2) academics, and 3) legal professionals to take him seriously. Thanks for reading, assuming anyone makes it this far!

kiba 17y ago

He is a practicing patent lawyer. I doubt a patent lawyer would be so crazy to argue against a system that give him his job without good reasons.

camccann 17y ago

I didn't vote you down, and please don't read this as an attack, it's an honest question: Yes, he obviously has a strong opinion on the matter, because it's a direct and obvious consequence of his ethical worldview. Is this really a bad thing? Do you see a distinction between "political bias" and "ethical belief"? These aren't necessarily issues with a single objective answer, and I don't understand the tendency to dismiss ethical stances as being "political" or "impractical", typically in favor of some ambiguously "pragmatic" status-quo. How would you rather see things work?