Thank goodness you are still free to make a shoe with red soles

by Jeffrey Tucker, Mises Blog
Aug. 12, 2011

It was a close call, but “A court on Wednesday refused to grant a preliminary injunction requested by the Christian Louboutin company against Yves Saint Laurent, alleging trademark infringement on shoes that featured red soles suspiciously similar to those of Louboutin. The decision not only cleared the way for YSL to continue producing its shoes, but also seemed to give coverage to other shoe manufacturers who may want to add a scarlet underpinning to their own future models”

Of course under strict IP model, the court would have granted the injunction. No one could emulate another and commercially profit. One business could not directly compete with another that had any idea first. The government would protect all thoughts as owned ideas and prohibit learning and competition through the whole of society. We would all be mandatory sealed off as isolated idea owners, clinging to what we could think up on our own, refusing to pass on those ideas for fear of theft, and carefully refusing to look at anything or listen to anything for fear that we might be influenced in someway. There would be true property rights in ideas. Then free enterprise as we know it would collapse, and society along with it.