Must Read: A Market for Ideas

Quick quiz: Who wrote the following:

"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."

Would you be surprised to know that it was The Economist? Okay, so it was a trick question -- this was published in 1851, when such sentiments were widely held.

This month's edition features the highly suggested A Market for Ideas, in which our current patent situation is accurately described, including the skyrocketing trend towards more and more IP and a bit about "mutually assured destruction." Read it.