In the 1960s Donald G. Stein wondered why female but not male rats recovered from brain injuries. His key finding, that the female hormone progesterone could heal brain injuries, challenged the scientific establishment and its group think mentality. Pharmaceutical companies couldn't be bothered to conduct R&D without the prospect of a patent, so they weren't interested. He got no government grant until 1999, which didn't kick in until 2001. Even the NIH ignored him at least until recently, although this might have been a good thing. A 1,000-patient study is in the works.

The Wall Street Journal reports the story today.

The link in the previous post disappeared, so click here. [There was a problem with the link. I'm not entirely sure what link Bill wanted, but this seems to do the job. David] I was wrong: here is a link to the Gale Collection which has an announcement about putting the entire past economist online.

The Economist was a leading voice in the anti patent movement of the 19th century. Here is what it wrote in 1851, quoted in the Oct. 20th 2005 edition.

A market for ideas Oct 20th 2005 From The Economist print edition

The granting [of] patents ‘inflames cupidity', excites fraud, stimulates men to run after schemes that may enable them to levy a tax on the public, begets disputes and quarrels betwixt inventors, provokes endless lawsuits...The principle of the law from which such consequences flow cannot be just.

The Economist may have put it rather strongly in 1851, but its disapproval of patents represented conventional wisdom at the time. A century earlier, Adam Smith had described them as necessary evils, to be handed out sparingly, and many other economists have since echoed his reservations. Patents amount to temporary monopolies on useful new inventions. …

Now you can read through those great anti patent editorials without even going to an archive or library. The entire run of The Economist is now online and searchable here .

Thanks to Mark Brady for the pointer.

Reputation, or more precisely the alleged ownership of one's reputation, is a first cousin of the monopoly formerly known as intellectual property. In a free market with a libertarian legal framework, no one owns his reputation, which is a function of other peoples' subjective opinion. That's why in a free market there would be no such thing as libel and slander.

Tell that to Indonesia's Supreme Court, which overruled a lower court's dismissal of a libel suit against Time magazine by former President Suharto. In a May 1999 article, Time allegedly libeled Suharto. Time is now on the hook for $106 billion in "damages," as this article says.

Here is the 1998 exchange between the thuggish--there is no other word to describe it--Anti-Defamation League and the Anarchist Anti-Defamation League.

This is the laugh line from the ADL's general counsel:

In fact, it appears to us that you may have selected a name so similar to our name in an effort to draw upon the good will and national success that people associate with the ANTI-DEFAMATION LEAGUE.

Anyone who knows anything about anarchism (which obviously the writer of the quoted words doesn't) knows that anarchists stand opposed to the statism of the ADL, including the Progress Clause of the U.S. Constitution, and all enabling legislation, both state and federal, as well as court decisions, such as those cited in the ADL's e-mail, that allow this sort of thuggery to stand.

As for the alleged good will and national success of the ADL, that is irrelevant to the AADL's using the designation "Anti-Defamation" in its name, which it has a natural right to do.

Informal "protection" of the incentive to innovate in magic tricks is discussed in this paper . No IP monopoly required.

The pointer is from Tyler Cowen at marginal revolution .

Yes, I am working on a trick to levitate the Patent and Trademark Office. I'll let a real magician, like David Copperfield make it disappear.

Maybe more innovative and with less work for the lawyers.

The Council of Fashion Designers of America is still lobbying Congress to extend the copyright monopoly to the fashion industry, as this story details .

I wonder who Anna Sui (she is quoted in the article) was copying when she was a young designer just starting out.

AdvanceMe, a Georgia-based cash advance business, tried to muscle in on the business of AmeriMerchant, filing the obligatory patent infringement case. David Goldin, the president of AmeriMerchant, found prior art from the 1980s and 1990s. AdvanceMe's patent was declared invalid because it failed the test for obviousness. Here is the story .

Speaking of small businesses, Gerry Elman, an IP lawyer, claims that "In the past, they have relied on the patent system to become big businesses," he said. "But now, the patent system is being gutted on the strength of lobbying by the information technology industry. Big businesses will be able to copy innovation with impunity and thumb their noses at the inventions of the little guy."

Did Wal-Mart and Microsoft rely on patents to become big businesses? Did Google vacate a college dorm room shared by two guys to challenge Microsoft on the strength of its patents? Did McDonald's outgrow the local burger stores because Ray Croc had a patent on burgers? No, no, no, and no.

Mr. Elman ought to redirect his reading from legal briefs to business history. Some relevant history can be found here .

Here's a link to a copy of "The Misunderstood Idea of Copyright" by Karl-Erik Tallmo.

Here is the homepage for his forthcoming book, The History of Copyright: A Critical Overview with Source Texts in Five Languages.

William Patry has a good blog post on the attempts by record labels to legally attack sellers of promotional CDs, as well as pawn shop owners. Stores in Florida have to apply for a resellers' permit, take a thumb print of CD sellers, and make a copy of their drivers' licenses. They also have to wait 30 days before selling CDs.

Apparently the record labels claim the first sale doctrine doesn't apply because resale is proscribed by the license terms.

The comments are interesting, including Crosbie Fitch's. In their comments, Prof. Patry and copyright lawyer LKB note the Pro-CD v. Zeidenberg case (1996), which enforced shrinkwrap licensing restriction for a telephone directory CD.

Here is a 1998 comment on shrinkwrap licensing by copyright lawyer Pamela Samuelson.

Note her discussion of Judge Easterbrook's decision why copyright shouldn't override a shrinkwrap licensing agreement in this case--and a bit further down Bill Gates' dismissal of a question about "fair use" by a Microsoft summer intern.

"Fair use"--isn't that what slaveowners consented to when they let their slaves visit town once in a while?

And regarding Easterbook's third reason for ruling for Pro-CD--that it wouldn't be able to recapture its investment in the telephone directory data if users could upload the date for free: what if on day one slavery were legal; on day two a slaveowner invested in new slaves; then on day three the legal authorities ruled slavery illegal, thus making his slave investment worthless? Would Judge Easterbrook rush to the defense of the slave owner, citing his concern about averting a "market failure," which would occur if the value of slaves plummeted to zero?

(Never mind that his idea of "market failure" is not what economists conventionally mean by that term.)