The extraordinary achievements in the modern pharmaceutical, biotech, telecommunications and computer industries are dramatic evidence of the significance of intellectual property rights to man’s life. Yet patents, copyrights and other intellectual property rights are under attack—theoretically, morally and legally.

This lecture explains why intellectual property rights are fundamentally important property rights by grounding them in the values that man must conceive and produce in order to live and flourish.

Fundamentally, all property is at root intellectual property, which is why Ayn Rand believes that intellectual property rights represent “the legal implementation of the base of all property rights: a man’s right to the product of his own mind.” In explaining why this is the case, this lecture identifies the radical political and legal implications of Rand’s innovative ethical theory, such as her novel concept of value and her discovery of the role of man’s mind in sustaining his life.