Fiction Books Inspired by Intellectual Property Law

In my blog post about fiction books inspired by ABC's The Bachelor, I listed all known books. For this list of fiction books inspired by intellectual property law, I've only listed books I've read or skimmed; so this is nowhere near a complete list!

There are a lot of novels that touch on the themes of property ownership of technology and art, but I've only included books that specifically mention trade secrets, trademarks, copyright, or patents as legal principles. My favorites from this list are Murder at Half Moon Gate (well-researched) and Going Postal (charming).

MYSTERY & THRILLER

Murder at Half Moon Gate

• Author: Andrea Penrose

  
  

• Goodreads Rating: 4.17 out of 5 stars

  • My rating: 3 stars

    
    

• Synopsis: The second in the Wrexford & Sloane historical mystery series, Lord Wrexford discovers the body of a gifted inventor in a dark London alley. He is drawn into the murder investigation when the inventor’s widow begs for his assistance, claiming the crime was not a random robbery but a targeted attack to steal his steam-machine designs before he submitted the patent application. Joining Wrexford in his investigation is Charlotte Sloane, who uses the pseudonym A. J. Quill to publish her scathing political cartoons and has a network of spies at her disposable.

  
  

• Review: I like the characters (even the children!) but these books are more thriller than closed-circle mystery. Can be read as a stand-alone.

  
  

• The Law: The author is not a lawyer or IP professional, but they're correct that steam patents were part of bitter legal battles in the Regency period. Steam engine patents are considered the turning point of when patents became "commercial" in the modern sense. Science Direct. Andrea Penrose wrote an article on her legal research for Crime Reads.

  
  

  • The author goes through the history of patents in the book, so it is difficult to choose one quote, but this at least shows the stakes are being raised! "We don't know how close he is to completing a working model of the engine, or how that might factor into the timing of applying for a patent. We may not have much time."

HISTORICAL FICTION

A Certain Age

• Author: Beatriz Williams

  
  

• Goodreads Rating: 3.65 out of 5 stars

  • My rating: 1 star

    
    

• Synopsis: This is a retelling of the German opera Der Rosenkavalier, based on two French novels. The book applies the struggle of old and new money and aristocrat love triangles to 1920s New York. Sophie and Virginia are "Patent Princesses" who are heirs to a large fortune. Their father, the "Patent King" is being tried for murder. The women navigate love and heartbreak in NYC during his trial.

  
  

• Review: I thought this was going to be a straight murder mystery, I didn't realize it was an adaption of a German opera. Since I read the book with the wrong expectations, I did not enjoy it. If you know it's going to be operatic, maybe you'll enjoy it more.

  
  

• The Law: The "Patent King" in the story is a man who invented something that speeds up industrial manufacturing and licenses out the design to millions of dollars. Williams draws an interesting line between the new money on how they earned their money and explores whether money from licensing is in some way less prestigious or moral to other forms of the wealthy socialites of the Roaring 20s.

  
  

  • "How could a man invent a single object and then vault - vault with such marvelous, casual ease! - over the accumulate wealth of no less than Mr. Thomas Sylvester Marshall of Fifth Avenue, whose father once supplied the entire Union Army with Canned ham?"

    
    

  • The only person I've seen called the "King of Patents" is Thomas Jefferson who had over 1000 patents so I'm doubtful that the fake tabloid coverage in this book would have existed, since Edison was still alive.

    
    

  • The book's character Virginia has a similar story to Edison's eldest's daughter (Marion) in that she attended good schools, went abroad, and had a short marriage to a European soldier before coming back to NYC. However, there's no evidence Madeline (his second daughter) was a flapper like Sophie, and obviously, Edison was more than just a patent broker and licensor.

    
    

  • Patent licensing was discussed by our Founding Fathers, HR-41 in 1790 included mention of licensing and patent brokerage took off at the turn of the 20th century. I the author chose the patent aspect more as a literary device to explore the relationship between labor and money, than as a real historical exploration of patent brokerage in the 1920s.

FANTASY

Going Postal

• Author: Terry Pratchett

  
  

• Goodreads Rating: 4.41 out of 5 stars

  • My rating: 5 stars

    
    

• Synopsis: Moist von Lipwig was a con artist and a fraud and a man faced with a life choice: be hanged, or put Ankh-Morpork's ailing postal service back on its feet. It was a tough decision. Perhaps there's a shot at redemption in the mad world of the mail, waiting for a man who's prepared to push the envelope...

  
  

• Review: Terry Pratchett's fantasy novels are always great and Going Postal might be my favorite. I also like the mini-series adaption (IMDB).

  
  

• The Law: The plot involves an early telegraph system competing with the mail system. The book covers corporate monopolies, industrial espionage, and proprietary technology.

  
  

  • "Let us consider a situation in which some keen and highly inventive men devise a remarkable system of communication ... What they have is kind of passionate ingenuity, in large amounts. What they don't have is money. They are not used to money. So they meet some people ... who for, oh, a forty-percent stake in the enterprise give them the much-needed cash ... and does it matter if they sign over another fifteen percent? It's just money. It's not important in the way that shutter mechanism are, is it? And then they find out that yes, it is. It is everything .. suddenly it turns out that those bits of paper they signed in a hurry - were advised to sign by people who smiled all the time - mean that they don't actually own anything at all, not patents, not property, nothing. Not even the contents of their own heads."

Foundryside

• Author: Robert Jackson Bennett

  
  

• Goodreads Rating: 4.17 out of 5 stars

  • My rating: 2 stars

    
    

• Synopsis: Sancia Grado is a thief and her latest target, a heavily guarded warehouse on Tevanne’s docks, is nothing her unique abilities can’t handle. But unbeknownst to her, Sancia’s been sent to steal an artifact of unimaginable power, an object that could revolutionize the magical technology known as scriving. Now someone in those Houses wants Sancia dead, and the artifact for themselves. To have a chance at surviving, Sancia will have to marshal unlikely allies, learn to harness the artifact’s power for herself, and undergo her own transformation, one that will turn her into something she could never have imagined.

  
  

• Review: The initial heist is fun but this book is 19 hours on audiobook which is too long for such little plot (it's a lot of banter).

  
  

• The Law: The fantasy world involves corporations who fiercely guard their proprietary magical knowledge like trade secrets.

  
  

  • "intellectual property is the easiest kinds to steal. This meant that all the land the houses owned was fiercely guarded, hidden behind walls and gates and checkpoints"

SCIENCE FICTION

Atlas Shrugged

• Author: Ayn Rand

  
  

• Goodreads Rating: 3.69 out of 5 stars

  • My rating: 1 star

    
    

• Synopsis: Dagny Taggart and Hank Rearden fight against a socialistic government that hinders their individual success,

  
  

• Review: This book is mostly political speeches. If you want "engineering dystopia" at least Fountainhead or Player Piano are readable.

  
  

• The Law: Rand's dystopia involves the government illegal seizing all intellectual property. In the real world, the government can legally seize patents under the Bayh-Dole Act of 1980, which had bi-partisan support and was introduced by infamous Republican Senator Bob Doyle. It's called a "march-in provision" and has never been exercised, however President Biden did threaten to use it to stop medical drug price-gouging.

  
  

  • "She had sent them to search through the files of the Patent Office; no patent for the motor had ever been registered. The only remnant of her personal quest was the stub of the cigarette"

    
    

  • "All patents and copyrights, pertaining to any devices, inventions, formulas, process and work of any nature whatsoever, shall be turned over to the nation as a patriotic emergency gift by means of Gift Certificates to be signed voluntarily by the owners of all such patents and copyrights. The Unification Board shall then license the use of such patents and copyrights to all applicants, equally"

    
    

  • "We don't actually have the legal power to seize the patents. Oh there's plenty of clauses in dozens of laws that can be stretched to cover it - almost, but not quite."

A Canticle for Leibowitz

• Author: Walter M. Miller Jr.

  
  

• Goodreads Rating: 3.99 out of 5 stars

  • My rating: 1 star

    
    

• Synopsis: A group of monks who preserve scientific knowledge in a Catholic monastery after a nuclear war.

  
  

• Review: This book is a satire so is heavy on the comedy, and I don't like comedy.

  
  

• The Law: This is slightly cheating since we don't get any large plot-line over intellectual property law, but the main character does save a patent registration early on in the book and the comedy only works if you know what is a patent.

Rainbows Ends

• Author: Vernor Vinge

  
  

• Goodreads Rating: 3.77 out of 5 stars

  
  

• Synopsis: Robert Gu is a recovering Alzheimer's patient. Now, as he regains his faculties through a cure developed during the years of his near-fatal decline, he discovers that the world has changed. The elderly poet is shocked to learn of a radical change planned for the UCSD Geisel Library; all the books there, and worldwide, would cease to physically exist. He and his fellow re-trainees feel compelled to join protests against the change.

  
  

• The Law: Set in a near-future San Diego, Rainbows End considers the obsoletion of copyright law in a hyper-connected world.

  • "Past digitizations have not been as global or as unified as this will be. And Huertas has lawyers and software that will allow him to render microroyalty payments across all the old copyright regimes - without any new permissions."