Customer Reviews

Hot Property: The Stealing of Ideas in an Age of Globalization

5 star:		(10)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(2)

 

 

I treasure Dr. Pat Choates new title (book). It is an easy read and a total epiphany. I thought I totally knew the negative side of so-called free trade and after perusing HOT PROPERTY I realized I knew little. Dr. Choate not only pinned down the significance of intellectual property (new ideas product-wise and the intangible, such as music, books, trademarks, software, methods, processes, and so forth) that stimulates our economy, but also makes clear how Japan in particular has bought off disloyal former D.C. government agents of all descriptions(Congressional staff, legislators, etc.)who have helped Japanese cartels steal the ideas as their own possession.

A recent e-mailed question from me to Dr. Choate regarding China's emerging roll as an economic power vis-a-vis Japan's theft of our (US) intellectual property produced the following reply from Professor Choate:

"The Japanese hold on the US economy by stealing our intellectual property is tighter now than ever. They now hold almost $1 trillion in federal securities, have a massive trade surplus with us -- far more than the $70 billion or so reported, because much of the China, Thailand, Mexico, etc., trade surpluses are from Japanese companies in those countries. Plus, the Japanese continue to hire our ex-officials on a wholesale basis. The Japanese are so involved with us it is as though they were co-directors of our government."

Read HOT PROPERTY and discover for yourself the wholesale theft of America's intellectual property that is all but destroying America's economic prowess and motivation to create new ideas that lead to innovation and economic stimulation.

Hot Property: The Stealing Of Ideas In An Age Of Globalization is especially recommended for its ethical, moral and wide-ranging social issues application. The problem of pirating and counterfeiting has been magnified with online availability making it a cinch to steal artistic and scientific creations: a habit which is draining our core economy, maintains author Pat Choate. Hot Property provides both a history of intellectual property conflicts and copyright, and a link between copyright issues and a healthy American economy.

As an attorney who practices intellectual property law, I read a lot of trade books that involve this issue. Considering the wide spectrum of views on intellectual property rights, it is no surprise that the category as a whole encompasses very different positions on how much protection intellectual property deserves and how best to protect it. The two major strengths of this book are its well articulated viewpoints and the strong writing. I was more than pleasantly surprised when I discovered that the book was not going to be a dry academic tome but instead incorporates about 200 years of the history of global intellectual property theft and enforcement that helps you place the issues in context with real-world events. The book mostly covers patent issues and presents cause for concern about the risk of the United States shifting into decline as it loses both the fruits of its inventiveness and the intellectual capital to sustain it. The only part I did not like was the last twenty to thirty pages which takes an anti-copyright view that favors restricted rights and enhanced bureaucratic formalities to maintain them. Irrespective of whether you agree with the author, this is an important book and one of the better written ones on the subject.

Choate has taken Intellectual Property, what normally would be a mundane subject, and elevated it to a riveting saga of the our history and evolution of this body of law. In and extremely balanced fashion, he deals with abuses we incurred to the intellectual property of others as well as violations of the rights of US entrepreneurs and inventors. Choate provides example after example of how our laws were developed as well as how numerous prolific individuals like Whitney, Bell, Edison both benefited and suffered in the intellectual property game. He also documents that tactics and strategies employed first by corporations and recently by nations to inappropriately capture, control, and exploit the innovation, creativity and intellectual resources of others.

It is a fascinating work filled with new and startling information that I found my self unable to put down. It is easy and enjoyable to read. It is must reading for every corportate executive responsible for the intellectual property of his/her company and it is must reading for every law maker across the nation!!

As an IP lawyer, I have a great type of interest in this field. I read a lot of books on this topic, and review them as well. This is one of the worst I have ever read.

I concede that Choate can spin a good tale, but the facts of the matter are that he knows nothing about this field, and it shows. By page four of the introduction, he is trying to scare people about the significance of fake or counterfeit goods by demonstrating actual cases of companies with substandard aircraft parts. The problem?

None of the cases cited involved faked parts, or intellectual property piracy. Make me scared to fly, sure, but even on Choate's own description, these were just American companies making their own substandard goods and shipping them off. It just gets worse from there.

There is all kinds of pro_America assertions, but little back up. In fact, next to no context even. Choate, for example, rants at the Germans for enforcing their patent rights to an anti malarial drug during WWII, at the expense of American soliders. The fact that we were in the middle of a vicious war with Germany at the time seems rather relevant to context and yet is never mentioned. And the fact that the USA then appropriated all of Germany's patents at the end of the war is seen as totally justified.

Later, Choate refers to patent examiners listening to H. Ross Perot speak at a conference as a "dedicated and patriotic act." No mention is made of how Choate was at that time Perot's VP candidate. Or that patent examiners listening to a non_patent trained person, or even legal or scientific trained person was probably a complete waste of their time and the government's money.

As a reviewer, I used every trick to get to the end of this book. I used to lie in bed at night and poke my boyfriend and go "listen to THIS!" Even as a non-IP guy, he could easily see how bad this was, logically and otherwise.

I could go on and on for pages about the problems with this book and in fact I have for a professional book review. All I can say here is that if you spend money for this book, you have paid too much.

This book is in large part a polemic against intellectual piracy and in favor of intellectual property protection. Author Pat Choate was third-party candidate Ross Perot's running mate in the 1996 U.S. presidential election. It is no surprise, then, that the book features charged rhetoric and less than scrupulously dispassionate analysis. Nevertheless, it provides an amusing, easy-to-read introduction to the history of intellectual property protection and its role in U.S. industrial development. That history takes some surprising turns. Eli Whitney, famed as the inventor of the cotton gin, went broke trying unsuccessfully to defend his patents. Alexander Graham Bell and Thomas Edison also experienced patent and piracy headaches. Choate recounts these stories with verve and style. He also attempts to be even-handed as when, for example, he draws a parallel between intellectual property violations and the use of traditional knowledge (such as folk medicine) without compensation to the peoples who preserved the traditions. Ultimately, though, Choate focuses more on identifying problems than at proposing solutions. We recommend this book to managers in businesses such as pharmaceuticals and media, which are struggling to preserve their intellectual property rights internationally, as well as to policy-makers and others who are interested in legal and business history.

Pat Choate is a straight shooter, and one of America's preeminent entrepreneurs of ideas. He is also a hell of storyteller, and a man of practical policy for profitable democracy. His focus has long been on the capacity of the American society to innovate, to build a nation of enduring foundation and continuing vitality. Choate's latest work, <Hot Property>, shows his passionate vision and displays his superb gifts for telling the tale, and for laying things out in ways in which we know they were meant to be.

But the empire of Global Totalism that would control the world today is naked in its desire to take all resources, all capital, all which humanity would bequeath its posterity (and perhaps that posterity, too) into its ravenous maw. And that empire sees Choate and his kind as, um, problems. So when those who dare point out the nakedness of the current imperium, and speak with clarity, and passion, and literary (is this non-efficient?) force about the need to be clothed with true innovation for the advancement of mankind, the minions of the imperium slither forth. These minions try to make sounds of reasonableness, but their true intent is heard in the sibilance of their forkéd tongues.

Choate was punished mightily before in telling the simple truth about Japanese manipulation of USA Congressional action in the now classic <Agents of Influence>. And while the voices have been somewhat more muted in discussion of <Hot Property>, the new Global Totalists would have any tome by Choate rendered to the ash heap of history. He knows too much.

Eyeing the current giveaway of America's intellectual patrimony, <Hot Property> tells some great stories about how a young America stole great European ideas to further its economy, and how the Germans, the Japanese and now the Chinese - each using different character-marking means -- have systematically done the same to further their own national ends.

Frederick Jackson Turner noted the importance of the American Frontier in the shaping of its peoples' character at the closing of the 19th Century. And so the frontier days of American innovation and invention reached new boundaries with the end of the American Century and the Millenial turn. Hot Property gigs the galloping globalists' giveaway of America's manufacturing capacity, it's patrimony of ideas, and the very frontiers of American innovation. Choate is a range rider - looking at the borders of this nation, protecting the frontiers of innovation from the poachers and the rustlers riding the contemporary range of ideas, practical discovery, and innovation.

USA intellectual property borders need protection, and protection is not a closing with an encircling wall. Times have changed. The USA's ability to maintain the integrity of those blessings bestowed upon us by "Nature and Nature's God" and by a living Constitution needs reinforcement. GATT, NAFTA, CAFTA - whatever alphabet mantle the Global Totalists of the Davos Cabal wish to clothe their avarice and greed, we must point out that these are transparent garments. These garments do not cover the Global Totalists rapacity.

If other observers are right, the Market States are on the rise. But a truly free global trade can only be achieved among a world of equal trader platforms, unfettered by imposed handicaps or cheated by favors. The importance of Hot Property is that it offers policy initiatives that might actually make America more competitive in a wordly, wise, eyes-wide-open market place. The globalist nightmare, with its totalist control of ideas and even consumer behavior, could end.

Choate's book alone cannot make the difference. That will take concerted action of a kind which the forces of global capital efficiency will oppose, whether that opposition comes from Nanjing, Osaka, Davos, or a yacht cruising off the coast of Connecticut. If there are choices left to make, Americans together must make them. Choate's work gives us tools to make those choices. <Hot Property> is not yet widely read. But the fault for that is not with the book or its author. It is in us.

Buy this book. Read it. Use it.

I sort of expected "Hot Property" to be another stuffy business book. However, I could not put the book down when I began to read it. It was great!

Mr. Choate provides great insight into the creation and growth of IP law. Colorful stories about inventors make it an entertaining book and the strategies revealed and used by Japan and China have really opened my eyes.

This is a very timely book and ties in with many of the current news stories on China's attempt to buy, steal and appropriate intellectual property from every corner of the world.

If you are an inventor, company CEO or anyone dealing with IP, "Hot Property" is essential reading.

This book is a timely commentary on how the United States is giving away its engine of wealth. Ideas of value form America's premium industry - historically a principal generator of societal wealth. Yet, to a an ever increasing extent, this country has been giving ideas away for others to generate the asosciated wealth. The idea industry has brought prosperity to America in the past, but today ideas are being given away - supported by the American Congress and the American Courts that are methodically destroying all reasonable and foreseeable incentives to risk innovating.

Inventors have always been the backbone of America's economy. Allowing foreign or domestic thieves to take our inventions will destroy our economy. Hot Property reveals just how serious this problem is.