Critical Review 1

In recent years, patents, copyrights and trademarks have become more and more prevalent. Nowadays, people are trying and in some instances succeeding in trademarking things such as human genes, scents, and even phrases such as Donald Trump’s “You’re Fired”. Kembrew Mcleod in his article titled, “Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity” analyzes the effects that patents and copyrights have on our society today. Mcleod uses numerous examples and anecdotes to emphasize his main point that patents and copyrights are getting out of hand and restricting our freedom of expression. Mcleod presents a very convincing argument in this article and does a great job explaining how trademark holders are going to the extreme to protect their property. Mcleod believes that our freedom of expression is being eroded because of the expansion of the patent law in the last quarter of the century. As a result, many things are becoming privatized. In the article, Mcleod discusses an incident regarding a man named Moore, who had his spleen removed to treat his leukemia. The doctor that did the procedure patented a cell line taken from his organ without Moore’s consent. The doctor went on to develop a drug from the patent and Moore did not reap any of the benefits of the success of the drug because of the doctor’s patent. This example proves that what some people are patenting these days is getting out of hand. In the article, Mcleod also argues that there is a fine line between intellectual property and freedom of expression. The purpose of copyright laws is to motivate inventors and thinkers to come up with innovative products and ideas. Their reward is that they have ownership of the idea for a period of time and then the public should be able use it after their period of control has expired. Therefore the law did not want anyone to have complete control over the product or idea. By allowing one person to have complete control over a product, society does not benefit. By not letting the public use patented ideas, we are hindering creative thinking. Without creative thinking we may never have gotten all of the new, innovative gadgets that we use today. After reading the article, Mcleod had me convinced that the use of patents, copyrights, and trademarks are getting out of hand and that the more we use them the more our freedom of expression diminishes. Mcleod uses a lot of examples to support his argument and to make a strong case. The example that had the most effect on me was the Moore story. I think that this is one example where people are taking patenting things too far. It was great that McLeod included this example because he made it easy for the audience to connect to the article emotionally. I think that the audience had an easy time sympathizing with Moore because the doctor made three million dollars off of Moore without his consent and Moore did not even get a share of the earnings. Although he gave a lot of good supporting examples, I think he should have included more recent ones that the audience could relate to. For instance, instead of talking about the impact of the VCR, he could have talked about the DVD player because that is what most people use now. Before reading this article I did not have much previous knowledge on this topic. Therefore, I found it very interesting that people can patent almost anything. I think that it is rather alarming that someone could patent human genes and even catch phrases, such as Donald Trump’s “You’re Fired” phrase. I think that the government should put some type of restriction on what can be patented. Mcleod’s argues in his article titled, “Freedom of Expression: Overzealous Copyright Bozos and Other Enemies of Creativity” that patents, copyrights, and trademarks are getting out of hand and restricting our freedom of expression. Through Mcleod’s use of supporting examples he was able to convince me that the more we use patents, copyrights, or trademarks the more our freedom of expression diminishes. Therefore, I believe that it is very important that we tone down the amount of restrictions imposed on us now in regards to copyrights and patents, and let creative thinking flourish again.