Magna Carta monument, Runnymede

Intellectual property violates the libertarian principles of homesteading and exchange, and it makes no sense as a right at all without the assumption of an omniscient and omnipotent organization willing to enforce it. Unlike homesteading and exchange, intellectual property is not something that anyone can reasonably expect to be able to defend and control.

The controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement exceeds the European Union competence. National Constitutional Courts may invalidate aspects of ACTA.

Patents promote horizontal innovation, but restrict vertical innovation. Without patents we will have more vertical innovation but less horizontal innovation. Even if Horizontal and Vertical Innovations are equally good in terms of their merits, one thing is clear, without patents, a lot more people will be able to use the technology, this is some place where a patent-less society will beat a pro-patent society hands down.

Just like if words were copyrighted, and you required a license to use the words, we would have had a LOT of innovation (horizontal) in terms of development of language and you required a license from John Locke's estate to use the term 'liberty', there would have been billions of words in English (a lot of them doing the same thing what others do), but a lot less number of people would be educated, and most of our brain cells would have been wasted on keeping track of 15 different terms for 'liberty', and 'passion'.

A more radical approach - and one likely to appal the privacy advocates - is to throw off the shackles of privacy protection altogether. This is the line followed by Harvard Medical School's Personal Genome Project, which aims to make personal genome sequencing more affordable and accessible. The PGP obliges those who choose to participate to make their genetic data and other personal information available to researchers and the public.