Business software maker Red Hat Inc said on Wednesday that it has settled two of three pending patent lawsuits that the company has been fighting.

Microsoft settles suits; patent lawsuits rising; EU in need of answers

"It is common to argue that intellectual property in the form of copyright and patent is necessary for the innovation and creation of ideas and inventions such as machines, drugs, computer software, books, music, literature and movies. In fact intellectual property is a government grant of a costly and dangerous private monopoly over ideas. We show through theory and example that intellectual monopoly is not necessary for innovation and as a practical matter is damaging to growth, prosperity and liberty."

It is an economic book that build a devastating case against patent and copyright laws.

Notes: It seem that book marks the GPL and other free software license as the exception and is something that they see as beneficial. It is something if possible they want to see preserved.

The landmark economic book that argue against "intellectual property" AKA intellectual monopoly is now available in print form. The economists David K. Levine and Michele Boldrin challenges conventional wisdom about patent and copyright and argue that we are better off without them. Of course, this book wouldn't be complete without praise of free software. :)

Patent-hoarding giant Intellectual Ventures has long beat the drum that it doesn't file lawsuits. But now Intellectual Ventures has started selling some of its 27,000 patents to people who aren't afraid to sue...

What was Jeff Bezos, Amazon's CEO, thinking? Amazon just signed a patent cross-licensing deal that pays Microsoft intellectual property fees for, among other things, patents that cover Amazon's Linux-based Kindle e-reader and its Linux servers.

The Community patent keeps marching, Jean-Philippe Courtois lobbies for the Lisbon Treaty, and Microsoft brings intellectual monopolies to The League of Arab States

Familiar bedfellows come together for an event that celebrates intellectual monopoly (Innovation 2009)

GNU GPL actually *depends* on copyright, an intellectual monopoly, in order to spread intellectual freedom. Moreover, it seems to doom free software into a kind of symbiosis with copyright, forcing it to remain a supporter of that monopoly, since without it, the approach used to make the GPL so powerful would not work.