"Overprotecting intellectual property is as harmful as underprotecting it. Creativity is impossible without a rich public domain. Nothing today, likely nothing since we tamed fire, is genuinely new: Culture, like science and technology, grows by accretion, each new creator building on the works of those who came before. Overprotection stifles the very creative forces it's supposed to nurture."

Source : White v. Samsung Electronics America, Inc., 989 F.2d 1512 (9th Cir. 1993), March 18, 1993.

Alex Kozinski

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