“Who owns your email? What about work place creation? Who owns what you come up with at work? Does it matter whether you used company technology to create and learn?”

These questions, asked by Deven Desai of Concurring Opinions, and related discussions on the economics of human capital form the basis of a week-long symposium on Orly Lobel’s Talent Wants to be Free. Professor Lobel has spoken eloquently on the “Talent Wars”, as she names the debates on intellectual property regulation, for outlets including The Freeman, The American Constitution Society blog, and Nerd Wallet.

“Abraham Lincoln famously stated that we grant exclusive patent protection to add the ‘fuel of interest to the fire of genius.'”

In these essays and interviews, Professor Lobel reflects on the shift from the inventor as an individual to invention in the context of the workplace. Beyond the scope of patents on inventions, companies often control their employees’ “potential for creativity” with non-compete agreements, which Lobel argues stifles economic development rather and defending it.

This week, during the Concurring Opinions symposium, Professor Lobel continues this conversation on the talent wars online, an appropriate venue considering the Internet’s centrality to the intellectual property debate. She will be joined by Matt Bodie, Anupam Chander, Danielle Citron, Catherine Fisk, Vic Fleischer, Brett Frischmann, Shubha Ghosh, Ron Gilson, Peter Lee, and Frank Pasquale.

Join the Symposium