logo

Against Monopoly

defending the right to innovate

Monopoly corrupts. Absolute monopoly corrupts absolutely.

Admin
Statistics

All Authors

John Bennett

Michele Boldrin

Monopoly Buster

Daniel Dobkin

Paul Grootendorst

Alistair Kelman

Stephan Kinsella

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

first last

Justin Levine

David K. Levine

Andrea Moro

Meera Nair

Michael Perelman

Sheldon Richman

Marcus Salomonsson

Keith Sawyer

Stephen Spear

Bill Stepp

William Stepp

William Stepp

Christian Zimmermann





All Topics

Against IM

Against Monopoly

All The News That Is Not Fit To Print

Apple's patents

Blocking Technology

Blog Spam

Blogroll

business method patents

Competition

Copyright

Copyright Sellouts

Corruption

Culture and IP

DRM

Drug patents

Ease of Imitation

Fair Use

Financial Crisis

Financial Patents

gene patents

Google Book Contract

Innovation

Intellectual Monopoly

Intellectual Property

IP and Economics

IP and Protectionism

IP and Religion

IP as a Joke

IP as Censorship

IP Bullying

IP History

IP Hypocrites

IP in the News

IP Law

IP Outrages

IP versus Research

Is IP Property

John Bennet

Leftism and IP

Libertarian Perspectives

Monopolistic Competition

Net Neutrality

Open Publishing

Open Source

Open Thread

Orphan Works

Other IP Type Rights

Patent

Patent Lawyers

Patent Madness

Patent Trolls

Patents

Patents (General)

Pharmaceutical Patents

Philosophy of IP

Piracy

Plagiarism

Politics and IP

Privacy and Government Intrusion

Propaganda

Public Goods and IP

Right of Publicity

Science and IP

Software

Software Patents

The IP Wars

The Last Mile Monopoly

The Music Police

The State and IP

Trademark

User Innovation

Was Napster Right?

World Book and Copyright Day


Blogroll

Anything Peaceful

Center for the Study of Innovative Freedom

Digital Productions

Ed Felten

Free Association

Gaming with Free Software

Google Patent Search

Intellectual Footprint

Larry Lessig

Mises Blog

Moving to Freedom

Patently Silly

Recording Industry vs. The People

Research on Innovation

Techdirt

The Open Knowledge Foundation

Trolltracker

rufuspollock.org

Copyright Notice: We don't think much of copyright, so you can do what you want with the content on this blog. Of course we are hungry for publicity, so we would be pleased if you avoided plagiarism and gave us credit for what we have written. We encourage you not to impose copyright restrictions on your "derivative" works, but we won't try to stop you. For the legally or statist minded, you can consider yourself subject to a Creative Commons Attribution License.
back

Piggly Wiggly

Via Steve Silberstein the story of Clarence Saunders. He invented the self-service grocery store - a valuable and important innovation. Amazingly enough after it was successful he seems to have patented the idea. I can't find any evidence the patent had any effect for good or ill - although it doesn't seem to have kept Saunders out of bankruptcy.

[Posted at 06/07/2009 11:56 PM by David K. Levine on Innovation comments(0)]

Comments

Submit Comment

Blog Post

Name:

Email (optional):

Your Humanity:

Prove you are human by retyping the anti-spam code.
For example if the code is unodosthreefour,
type 1234 in the textbox below.

Anti-spam Code
UnoThreeSixSix:


Post



   

Most Recent Comments

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

An analysis of patent trolls by a trademark lawyer 555
at 04/17/2026 06:38 AM by Anonymous

Book List

Boldrin and Levine Against Intellectual Monopoly

Stephan Kinsella Against Intellectual Property

The IP Policy Wiki