The Hidden Cost of ‘Free’: The Big Steal Shines a Light on the Domestic Threat to U.S. IP Rights
- Shidonna Raven
- 1 hour ago
- 3 min read
By Bruce Berman
January 9, 2025
Source: IP Watchdog
Photo / Image Source: Unsplash,
“The Big Steal provides more hope than despair. Its message suggests that America’s embrace of property and rule-of-law are alive, if not so well, when it comes to IP rights over the past decade.”
An important new book about the impaired U.S. intellectual property (IP) system, The Big Steal – Ideology, Interest, and the Undoing of Intellectual Property, by Jonathan M. Barnett, reveals the deepening failure of IP rights to retain their property status and the weaknesses – seen and unseen – that have accompanied it. The focus of The Big Steal is on what the IP system’s recent failures impact, who they benefit, and what can be done to repair the damage.
What is often pondered by members of the IP community but seldom discussed – the threat imposed by poorly defined IP rights – is at the core of The Big Steal. This engaging book provides well-argued insight into the declining reliability of U.S. intellectual property rights. Many of those affected by IP assume theft on the part of Big Tech is obvious and there is little that can be done to reverse it, or they fear the potential repercussions of doing so. Some do not believe the weaknesses in the system are that bad or that they will impact the nation or them personally. They are wrong.
That strong IP rights and their restrictions are in fact good for innovation, creative expression and the economy, and provide far more opportunities than they might discourage, is lost today on even the best-informed professionals and educators. For them, the idea of “good” IP rights has come to be seen as counter intuitive. Thankfully, underserved communities are finally coming around to a better understanding of the benefits of strong, consistently applied IP rights, and that in general, when functioning properly, they work in their favor. As Barnett says in the book:
“Over anything other than the immediate short term, the world is better off by having replaced the kerosene lamp with electric lighting, rather than simply reducing the price of kerosene lamps. The current IP policy trajectory toward increasingly weaker IP rights risks giving us a cheaper kerosene lamp, but no electric lighting. That may be a good deal for the lamp maker and its existing customers, but it will be a bad deal for just about everyone else.”
Barnett, Director of the Media, Entertainment and Technology Law Program at the University of Southern California (USC)’s Gould’s School of Law and a former corporate lawyer at Cleary Gottlieb Steen &Hamilton in New York, provides context for the dwindling respect patents and other rights have experienced over the past decade and the serial theft it has wrought. He renders the role of IP rights more meaningful for a range of audiences, essential for rebuilding trust in a system that was once the envy of the world. This is no easy feat.
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