Kinsella On Liberty

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 140. As noted here, I was a guest Jan. 20, 2012 on the Liberty Underground Radio Show on the 1787 Radio Network, discussing IP for about 25 minutes. The reason they invited me on was the hosts, in discussing SOPA and PIPA in the Dec. 31, 2011 show (hour 1, starting about 10 minutes in), had a dispute about IP. Although the main host questioning me was on the fence about IP, he was open-minded, fair, and civil, and I think he moved a bit in the anti-IP direction by the end. The show has a podcast (feed) and my segment was on the second hour, starting at about 25:25 (audio).

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 139.  Albert Lu interviewed me for his Power and Market podcast, posted July 29, 2014. Unlike most interviews, we talked about education, career choices, and related matters. This is an edited version of a longer interview. The longer one can be obtained by requesting access here. Other Kinsella biographical material. Lu's description for the longer interview (which will be posted anon): Interview Highlights In this interview, Stephan speaks directly to prospective law students, internet entrepreneurs, and technology capitalists about the practice of law and the dangerous world of intellectual property. We also took time to discuss his own academic career and his multiple transitions from engineering student, to lawyer, to proprietor and independent scholar. This was a fun interview and reminds me of reason I began this project in the first place. https://youtu.be/APSe1pnsxhQ?si=Za4UmfppysBvUPb4 Grok shownotes, episode summary, and transcript below: SHOWNOTES FROM GROK:   body { font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.6; margin: 20px; max-width: 800px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } h1 { color: #333; text-align: center; } .summary { background-color: #f9f9f9; padding: 15px; border-radius: 5px; margin-top: 20px; } .timestamp { color: #888; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold; margin-right: 5px; } p { margin-bottom: 15px; } Power and Market Report: Show Notes with Stephan Kinsella [0:00]In this engaging episode of the Power and Market Report, host Albert Lu interviews Stephan Kinsella, a patent attorney and prominent anti-intellectual property (IP) theorist, from his home in Houston, Texas [1:09]. Kinsella shares his journey from a science enthusiast in rural Louisiana to earning degrees in electrical engineering and law, driven by a passion for both hard sciences and legal theory [1:20]. He discusses how market incentives and personal adaptability shaped his career, emphasizing the importance of optimism and flexibility for young people navigating their professional paths [6:25]. The conversation delves into practical IP concerns, particularly around domain names and trademarks, with Kinsella advising entrepreneurs to conduct thorough trademark searches to avoid legal disputes [10:32]. The discussion also explores the inefficiencies of the IP system, which Kinsella critiques as a "cancer" on the free market, forcing businesses to hire lawyers for unnecessary protections [15:19]. He clarifies the distinctions between copyright, trademark, patent, and trade secret, noting that short titles like “Power and Market” are not copyrightable but may require trademark consideration [19:26]. Kinsella wraps up by sharing productivity tools like j2.com for online faxing and SugarSync for file synchronization, invaluable for his law practice [21:17]. The episode concludes with contact information for Kinsella and an invitation for listeners to access bonus content at powerandmarket.com/bonus [23:57], offering a blend of personal insights, legal advice, and libertarian perspectives on IP and entrepreneurship.   body { font-family: Arial, sans-serif; line-height: 1.6; margin: 20px; max-width: 900px; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto; } h1 { color: #333; text-align: center; } h2 { color: #007BFF; margin-top: 30px; border-bottom: 2px solid #007BFF; padding-bottom: 5px; } .segment { margin-bottom: 20px; padding: 15px; background-color: #f9f9f9; border-radius: 5px; } .timestamp { color: #888; font-size: 0.9em; font-weight: bold; margin-right: 10px; } .description, .summary { margin-top: 10px; } ul { list-style-type: disc; margin-left: 20px; } li { margin-bottom: 10px; } .summary { font-style: italic; color: #555; } Power and Market Report: Detailed Show Notes with Stephan Kinsella This episode of the Power and Market Report, hosted by Albert Lu, features Stephan Kinsella, a patent attorney and anti-intellectual property theorist, recorded on July 29, 2014. Below is a detailed summary of the conversation, segmented into blocks of approximately 5 to 15 minutes, with bullet points, time markers, and enriched descriptions including examples, illustrations, and anecdotes. Each segment provides a deep dive into the topics discussed, tailored for engaging show notes. Segment 1: Introduction and Kinsella’s Background (0:00–6:25, ~6.5 minutes) The episode kicks off with Albert Lu setting the stage from the "Bayou State" (Louisiana), introducing the Power and Market Report as a platform exploring liberty and entrepreneurship. He welcomes Stephan Kinsella, a Houston-based patent attorney with a twist: Kinsella is a leading critic of intellectual property (IP), arguing it’s both unjust and nonexistent. Lu paints a vivid picture of Kinsella’s journey, from a small-town Louisiana kid tinkering with electronics to earning advanced degrees in electrical engineering and law. The conversation dives into Kinsella’s early life, where his curiosity for science and philosophy shaped his path. He shares nostalgic anecdotes about dismantling radios and getting shocked, illustrating his hands-on approach to learning, and reflects on the less structured college selection process of his era compared to today’s hyper-competitive landscape. [0:00] Albert Lu opens the show with enthusiasm, broadcasting from Louisiana, and introduces Stephan Kinsella as a guest who blends legal expertise with a radical anti-IP stance. He frames the episode around the "business of liberty," setting an engaging tone for entrepreneurs and liberty enthusiasts. [0:29] Lu provides a detailed biography: Kinsella grew up near Baton Rouge, earned a bachelor’s and master’s in electrical engineering at LSU, and later pursued a JD (1991) and LLM (1992). He’s a registered patent attorney but also an independent scholar who challenges IP’s legitimacy, famously arguing in his writings that patents and copyrights stifle innovation. For example, Kinsella’s book Against Intellectual Property posits that IP laws create monopolies that harm creators more than they help. [1:20] Lu prompts Kinsella to share his pre-college interests, sparking a lively discussion about his childhood fascination with science and philosophy. Kinsella recalls reading pseudoscience books on pyramid power and exploring religious ideas, showing his broad curiosity. [1:43] Kinsella dives into his love for technology, sharing an anecdote about taking apart televisions and radios as a kid, often getting shocked in the process. He explains choosing electrical engineering at LSU because it was practical and interesting, contrasting his era’s casual college selection—flipping through a catalog—with today’s SAT prep and campus tours. For instance, he picked his major simply because he liked computers, a decision that felt intuitive rather than calculated. [3:06] Kinsella describes his college years at LSU as fascinating, but after job offers from General Dynamics and Schlumberger, he opted for grad school to delay entering the workforce. His girlfriend (now wife) was still in school, and a quasi-recession prompted him to stay in academia. He shares how his dissatisfaction with engineering’s mechanical focus led him to legal theory, sparked by writing libertarian articles for the school newspaper and friends urging him to attend law school because he loved to argue. This opening segment introduces Kinsella’s unique blend of technical and legal expertise, rooted in a curious childhood and a pragmatic approach to education. His anecdotes about tinkering with electronics and navigating college choices highlight a relatable journey shaped by passion and opportunity, setting the stage for deeper discussions on IP and entrepreneurship. Segment 2: Career Choices and Market Influences (6:25–10:03, ~3.5 minutes) This shorter segment bridges Kinsella’s personal story with practical advice, focusing on how market incentives and personal choices shape careers. Lu reflects on the uncertainty of youth—how 17-year-olds often don’t know their calling—and asks if it’s beneficial for the market to guide career paths. Kinsella shares a thoughtful perspective, drawing from his own experience and his role as a parent to an 11-year-old son. He illustrates with an analogy: career choices are like an “embarrassment of riches,” where intelligent people must narrow down abundant options. He recounts his lower-middle-class upbringing, where optimism and supportive parents fueled his confidence, and uses vivid examples, like ruling out unrealistic careers (e.g., basketball for the short), to underscore the need for adaptability and realistic ambition in a market-driven world. [6:25] Lu poses a philosophical question: is it good that the market often chooses careers for young people, given that at 17, most are unsure of their path? He notes how market incentives like prestige and earnings guide choices, using his own engineering background as an example. Kinsella agrees, suggesting that competent, hardworking individuals are suited for many roles, likening career selection to choosing from a vast menu. [6:46] Kinsella reflects on advising his 11-year-old son,

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 138.  This is my appearance on the most recent episode (376) of Ben Stone's Bad Quaker podcast, Recorded July 16, 2014, posted July 27, 2014. From his description page: "Stephan Kinsella and Ben Stone have a chat about getting even, property rights, and how many libertarians can dance on the head of a pin. Links: Stephan Kinsella Against Intellectual Property Getting Even: Forgiveness and Its Limits" We also talked about Tesla and patents.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 137. I participated in an impromptu Google Hangout by Daniel Rothschild for his "Live Free, Die Old" podcast, including Matt Gilliland and James Cox, on the night after I did a Liberty.me seminar. Rambling and casual. We give poor Cox a bit too much grief for being confused and apparently relativist about rights. Good times. *** For an extra, see the Youtube at the bottom, a 30 minute talk between me and Cox, when I was in Banff Canada and lost in the woods and shooting the sh*t with him.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 136. A discussion with Carlos Morales on the Truth Over Comfort podcast. We discuss children's rights, spanking, my article "How We Come To Own Ourselves," "intractable" issues like abortion, etc.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 135. My discussion with Bernie Greene of the Life, Liberty and Proper Tea podcast, released July 18, 2014. From his shownotes: "Stephan Kinsella has made some profound contributions to the liberty philosophy. Here we touch on the nature of law in a free society, IP, democracy vs other forms of tyranny and, of course, pipe smoking. https://stephankinsella.com/ And this is Stephan’s podcast feed. It includes some incredibly interesting stuff including an entire lecture series on Libertarian Legal Theory. I’ve listened to many of the podcasts several times. Truly excellent stuff. https://itunes.apple.com/us/podcast/kinsella-on-liberty/id595093254"

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 134. [Update: Transcript is here, and appended below.] This is my appearance as a Guest panelist on This Week in Law, Episode 267 (July 18, 2014).  Brief description: “Are patent trolls losing ground? Dish Anywhere in the Aereo aftermath, FCC gets 1 million comments on U.S. net neutrality debate and more!" Once again, the hosts and the other guest were congenial to my radical anti-IP views, and the other guest, law professor Harry Surden, basically acknowledged that there is no clear empirical evidence in favor of the patent system. (BTW the title of the show stemmed from my use of the fancy SAT word eleemosynary—it's used in Louisiana law on occasion, which is how I know, but it is obscure, but a fun word, so I had to drop it in the conversation... Some of my previous posts related to some of the topics discussed: Net Neutrality Developments Against Net Neutrality A Libertarian Take on Net Neutrality Costs of the Patent System Revisited Yet Another Study Finds Patents Do Not Encourage Innovation Patent trolls as mafioso (and that’s a compliment) My previous two appearances on TWiL were: KOL104 | This Week in Law 97: God Creates. We Patent. IP, Net Neutrality, etc (2011) and KOL103 | This Week in Law 133: Beyonce, Bad Laws, and Breastaurants (2011). Transcript THIS WEEK IN LAW 267 (TRANSCRIPT) Aug 11th 2014 This Week in Law Episode 267 - Jul 18 2014 Google, Dropbox, Canon and other c… Denise Howell: Next up on This Week in Law, Stefan Kinsella and Harry Surden join Evan Brown and me. We’ll talk about the FCC getting the soppa treatment, piloting a Nautilus through SCOTUS’ patent wonderland. We’re going to have some other strange boats, too. And talk about the law’s role regarding kids’ cruelty on social media. Much more too on This Week in Law. Netcasts You Love, From People You Trust. This is TWiT! (TWiT logo) Bandwidth for This Week in Law is provided by CacheFly at CacheFly.com (CacheFly logo) Advertisement: This is TWiL, This Week in Law, with Denise Howell and Evan Brown, Episode 267 recorded July 18, 2014 Eleemosynary, My Dear Watson Denise: (bagandbaggage.com - @dhowell) Hi folks, I’m Denise Howell. And you’re joining us for This Week in Law, thank you so much for joining us.  We are thrilled to have you and we hope you will be thrilled to be here. We have an awesome panel for you today. We haven’t done too much on the Supreme Court’s recent patent decisions and we’re definitely going to get to that today, plus a whole bunch of other great stuff at the intersection of law and technology. And to help us understand it all, we’ve got Stephan Kinsella joining us once again here on the show. Hello Stephan. Stephan Kinsella: (stephankinsella.com - @nskinsella) Hello. Denise glad to be here. Denise: Great to have you back. What’s going on with you these days? Stephan: Well, trying to stay out of the Houston see in the summer, but having a good summer and following all these patent cases and IP developments. It’s interesting to watch, but so far everything is going very well. The good thing about being on your show, I save time I listen to it anyway, so I can save the podcast for a walk. Denise: That’s wonderful; great, we could save you some time. And make room for somebody else in your podcast lineup. Also joining us a return visitor to TWiL is Harry Surden from University of Colorado law school at Boulder. Harry Surden: (harrysurden.com - @HarrySurden) Hey, Denise. How are you? Denise: I’m doing well, thank you so much for joining us. Great to have you back. Harry: It’s really great to be back. Denise: So, tell us about Boulder in the summertime; make us all jealous. Harry: Boulder in the summer is outstanding. I mean, I can’t say enough about it. There’s millions of hikes just within the city’s borders and it’s beautiful. This has been a particularly mild summer. And it’s sunny almost every day and it’s quite lovely, I must say. Denise: (laughter) I knew that was going to be the case. Just, you know, hoping for. Maybe random thunderstorm shaking things up for you but. Actually, no, we wish you a wonderfully beautiful summer. And also enjoy the lovely summer weather in Chicago, Illinois is Evan Brown. Hello Evan. Evan Brown: (infolawgroup.com -@internetcases). Hi, Denise. Yes, I am thrilled to be here and as nice as it would be to be in Boulder, I guess the second best place is to be sitting in front of a computer somewhere else on TWiL. Talking with the three of you. This ought to be a lot of fun, so it’s great to be here. Denise: The weather’s always good on TWiL. Evan: That’s right, it’s always sunny here. Denise: Good climate control. All right, well, let’s check out the patent on, the patent climate recently in the wake of a couple important Supreme Court decisions. And some other good patent news. So let’s go there first. (Advertisement: music playing, black background; white wording: it’s patent time) Denise: Let’s head into wonderland via Nautilus if we can. The couple of big cases out of the Supreme Court this year. One called Alice, one called Nautilus. And really need to have a better understanding of these because they are already being applied by other courts. So let’s start with Stephan. Stephan can you tell us the significance of each of these cases, and sort of your take on them. Stephan: Well, I think generally, the significance is a few things. The courts have been pretty much unanimous with its most of its patent rulings. They pretty much reversed the federal court, the Court of Appeals of the Federal Circuit in most of the recent holdings. And it seems like they’re basically, trying to clarify the law. Have it be more certain, which was one of the goals of the Federal Circuit in the first place, which it seems to have not done too good a job of, in recent years. And also to sort of push the rules slowly in a direction towards clamping down on frivolous patents, frivolous patent claims, patent troll assertions, things like that. I don’t think we want to give too much into the boring patent lawyer weeds but, you know, there are different aspects of patent law. One of them is the requirement to have an enabling disclosure another is to have enough   specificity your claims. And The Nautilus case, I thought was pretty good, because it’s really going to affect patent trolls a lot in companies that assert patents that have vague claims. It’s basically an attempt to impose certainty on the law. One of the justifications for patent law, is that it’s similar to property law and that the claims sets out the metes and bounds of property. And usually in the case of land, say, you can see the bounds pretty easily, or at least its determinable. And in a patent, you have to use words to describe the metes and bounds of the patent claim. If you don’t clearly defined it, then you have just created a lot of in certainty and this can be used in legal bullying by or even extortion as some call it by the patent owner because the target of the patent assertion is not sure they are not sure if they will win or not, because it’s not clear what is claimed. To be honest, I think patent lawyers and take advantage of this, sometimes they will throw in extra claims which have an intentionally broad, I’m sorry they aspect because they figure they may be can get this past the examiner. And it doesn’t really hurt your client to have a paid claim. The patentee does not suffer any cost what so ever from having a vague claim in the patent as long as some of the other ones are clear. Because you can always theoretically use that vague claim in defense or for offensive reasons. And so, patent attorneys will take advantage of the system and patentee’s will as well. So I think it is good, what the court did was basically they clamped down on the standards that you can use to overturn a claim for being too indefinite, okay? They made it easier to do that, so I think that is a good move. And, some of the other cases they are also ratcheting back on the scope of patentable subject matter. But probably the most import thing is that the fact that most of these rulings are unanimous, and so there is at least a fairly clear ruling. I can’t say the same thing about their copyright rulings, like in the Aereo case, but it’s at least in the patent fields, I think they are basically doing the CAFC job for them. So the idea of whether we need the CAFC is becoming scrutinized. If everything is going too appealed to the Supreme Court anyway. Why do we need a federal appellate court that is effectively the junior Supreme Court for patents? Why not have a diverse multi-circuit system like we have in other federal appellate litigation, where different circuits can approach each other and we can learn? The Supreme Court can decide conflicts if they have to. So, that’s a summary of some of the trends that are going on now in these patent cases. Denise: Right, and for anyone not to on their lawyerly acronyms; CAFC would be the Court of Appeal for the Federal Circuit. The court that hears patent cases and has jurisdiction over them. Harry how is the Federal Circuit Court of Appeal faring these days? Harry: Well, let me just, before I answer that. Let me just, comment that I really agree that the single biggest force driving patent law at the Supreme Court for the last 10 years or so has been patent trolls and most of your viewers may know what patent trolls are. But for those who don’t. These are folks who are variously called nonpracticing entities or patent assertion entities, but basically companies that tend not to make actual physical products, but just tend to buy patents and make the money by suing on patents usually against companies that actually make things like technology companies or provide goods and services. So they are,

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 133. I appeared on Ernie Hancock's show for all 3 hours of the July 9, 2014 episode to discuss intellectual property and related issues in detail. We discussed the constitutionality of IP, cryptocurrency/bitcoin, and related matters. This was a followup to the June 18 episode which featured Reed Jessen who was speaking about a way to fight patent trolls, which I called into. My previous appearances on Ernie's show: KOL089 | Declare Your Independence with Ernest Hancock radio: Intellectual Property, L. Neil Smith and KOL060 | Guest on Ernest Hancock’s Declare Your Independence radio show: intellectual property and libertarianism (2010).

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 132. Michael Shanklin passed on to me a variety of questions on libertarian theory and applications for his Voluntary Virtues network. I'll be a regular guest monthly. Relevant links: Fraud, Restitution, and Retaliation: The Libertarian Approach.

Kinsella on Liberty Podcast, Episode 131. Jeff Tucker and I discuss the recent announcement by Tesla that it will cease enforcing its patents. Relevant links: All Our Patent Are Belong To You, By Elon Musk, CEO, Tesla Tucker, Tesla Shock: A Company Favors Competition Kinsella, The Patent Defense League and Defensive Patent Pooling