Intellectual property: Patents against prosperity | The Economist
►http://www.economist.com/blogs/democracyinamerica/2011/08/intellectual-property?fsrc=scn/tw/te/bl/patentsagainstprosperity
This recent episode of Planet Money, “When Patents Attack”, is an informative and entertaining primer on the way America’s patent system squelches competition, slows innovation, and enables egregious predation through the legal system. Please listen to this. And then tell me that Nathan Myhrvold of Intellectual Ventures is not our age’s authentic villainous robber baron, making a fortune gaming America’s dysfunctional patent-law system to shake down would-be innovators.