The Smartphone Wars and “Patent Trolls”

by Adam Mossoff | Jun 20, 2017

There are widespread complaints today that the “patent system is broken” and that the “smartphone wars” and “patent trolls” are killing innovation. Yet patented innovation has revolutionized our lives today—tablet computers, smartphones and antiviral drugs are just a few of these modern marvels. How to make sense of this contradiction?

There are widespread complaints today that the “patent system is broken” and that the “smartphone wars” and “patent trolls” are killing innovation. Yet patented innovation has revolutionized our lives today—tablet computers, smartphones and antiviral drugs are just a few of these modern marvels. How to make sense of this contradiction? This talk by law professor Adam Mossoff answers this question and highlights how objectivity in one’s life requires both knowing the right facts and using a rational method in thinking about these facts.

Recorded live on June 29, 2014, at Objectivist Summer Conference 2014 in Las Vegas, Nevada. Made available by The Ayn Rand Institute.

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Adam Mossoff

Mr. Mossoff is a professor of law at Antonin Scalia Law School at George Mason University. He is a Visiting Intellectual Property Fellow in the Edwin Meese III Center for Legal and Judicial Studies at The Heritage Foundation, a Professor of Law at the Antonin Scalia Law School of George Mason University, and a Senior Fellow at the Hudson Institute. His scholarship has been relied on by the Supreme Court, by federal courts, and by federal agencies, and he has been invited numerous times to testify before the Senate and the House of Representatives on proposed intellectual property legislation. Visit his website at adammossoff.com.