Author: Timothy B. Lee

Monday’s edition of the Cato Institute’s daily podcast features an interview with Robert Laughlin, a Nobel Laureate in physics who wrote a book called The Crime of Reason about the ways that national security, patent, and copyright laws are restricting scientific research and the pursuit of knowledge. While I was in DC a couple of…

I’m working on a three-part series on self-driving automobile technology for Ars Technica. In part one I covered the state of existing self-driving technology and highlighted the dramatic progress that has been made in recent years. In part two, I assume that the remaining technical hurdles can be surmounted and examine what the world might…

If you’ve paid attention to copyright debates in recent years, you’ve probably seen advocates for more restrictive copyright laws claim that “counterfeiting and piracy” cost the US economy as much as $250 billion. When pressed, those who make these kinds of claims are inevitably vague about exactly where these figures come from. For example, I…

Tom Lee makes an interesting point about the satellite case I wrote about on Saturday: the problem facing EchoStar and other satellite manufacturers is strikingly similar to the challenges that have been faced for many years by video game console manufacturers. There’s a grey market in “mod chips” for video game consoles. Typically, they’re sold…

My friend Julian Sanchez reports on a September 29 ruling by a federal magistrate judge that retailers will not be required to disclose the names of customers who purchased open satellite hardware that is currently the subject of a copyright lawsuit. The Plaintiff, Echostar, sought the records as part of its discovery procedures in a…

In Tuesday’s post, I explained why I thought Quanta v. LG was a good decision as a matter of law. Today I’d like to talk about why it’s an important outcome from a policy perspective. The function of the patent exhaustion doctrine is to ensure that the lanes of commerce do not become clogged with…

Thanks to Ed for the invitation to contribute to FTT and for the gracious introduction. In addition to being a grad student here at Princeton, I’m also an adjunct scholar at the Cato Institute. Cato recently released the latest edition of its annual Supreme Court Review, a compilation of scholarly articles about the most recent…