Patents for Power: Intellectual Property and the Diffusion of Military Technology

Now that all the early November nonsense is out of the way, it is time to announce that Patents for Power, my latest book, is now available at Amazon and at other retailers. The book is about military technology and intellectual property, and especially how intellectual property law shapes the ways in which military technology spreads across the international system. It includes a survey of academic thinking on IP and military technology (not enough!), investigations of the structure of IP law in some major countries (China, Russia, South Korea), and an examination of how the growing body of international intellectual property law has enabled certain forms of espionage while also giving core countries (primarily the United States, but also some European countries) substantial control over international arms export markets. If you want to understand how the United Kingdom can stop Argentina from buying Korean fighter jets, or why the United States has become frantic about Chinese cyber-espionage, or how IP concerns have changed the defense industrial base in major ways, this is a good place to start.

This project began in 2009, and has gone through more nonsense than I care to relate. I have accumulated a great many links to other work associated with the project on the book’s LGM page. This includes lots of smaller articles at the Diplomat, the National Interest, and elsewhere, links to published academic work on the project, links to LGM posts that touch upon the project in some way, and finally links to a list of works that I have found helpful along the way. As with any good research project, once you begin to pull at the the threads you begin to see how they run through tapestries in ways that you had never anticipated.

Expect to see additional (entertaining) promotion in this space and on my twitter feed. I have also set up a Facebook page where I’m sharing news of and about the project, as well as a dedicated twitter account. Finally, if you’d like to have me over for a Zoom with your class or some other group, for an interview, or for a podcast, I’m quite happy to do so. Contact me at the address on the right sidebar.