Hot Property

In this summary you will learn

• How the U.S. and other countries have profited from intellectual property theft
• Why the U.S. must now work to prevent piracy and counterfeiting

getAbstract rating

Why you should read Hot Property

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 is much more successful at identifying problems than at proposing solutions. getAbstract.com recommends 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.

About the Author

Pat Choate was Ross Perot’s running mate in the 1996 U.S. presidential election and he has written several books with Perot, including The High-Flex Society, America in Ruins, Being Number One and Save Your Job, Save Our Country.