Resources for Further Study:

• Elite Strategic Services

• To Intent Is Divine: Creativity and Ownership

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The Questioning Belief podcast explores objections to Christianity through in-depth discussions with experts. Drawing from her background as a former atheist and her experience in apologetics, Dr. Kathleen Noller invites you to explore thoughtful responses to serious questions about faith. Learn more.

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Transcript

Hello, welcome to the Kathleen Noller podcast brought to you by the C.S. Lewis Institute. I'm your host, Dr. Noller, former atheist turned Christian and biomedical scientist. Join us as we interrogate Christianity and see if it can stand up to some of our toughest objections. So today we're starting a bit of a new series, which has a general objection, one that I've heard quite frequently. It's that one should not bring personal beliefs, particularly religious beliefs, into the workplace. and that it's both possible and advisable for the sake of remaining unbiased to dismiss one's worldview and its implications while at work. So, we're going to have a few different speakers to this effect. Today, we have a very exciting speaker, James R. Edwards, Jr. He is the founder and CEO of Elite Strategic Services, LLC, and he consults on intellectual property, antitrust, health, and transportation policy. He plays leadership, strategic, and advisory roles on IP, particularly patents. He spoke at conferences and seminars around the country, at Capitol Hill Briefings and Washington, D.C. events. Edwards was selected as a Lincoln Fellow of the Claremont Institute and was awarded an Eagle Award by Eagle for Education and Legal Defense Fund. He participates in the Medical Device Manufacturer Association's Patent Working Group.

Edwards contributes to IP Watchdog, The Hill, Intellectual Asset Management, IEEE USA Insight, and other media. He holds bachelor's and master's degrees from the University of Georgia and a Juris Doctorate from the University of Tennessee. So, we're going to be discussing his recent book, To Intent is Divine, Creativity and Ownership. So, this book shows how the patent and IP system, within the patent and IP system, the American founders designed, it became the world's gold standard. Rooted in scripture, the merit-based US IP system democratized patenting, secured enforceable property rights, and produced an amazing pace of technical technological advancement. So, thank you so much, Mr. Edwards, for joining us today. We really appreciate it.

James Edwards: I'm thrilled to be here, and I appreciate you having me on, Kathleen.

Kathleen Noller: Of course. So, before we begin, I’d love to briefly hear your testimony and how you came to know the Lord. Would you mind sharing that with us?

James Edwards: Happy too I was born into a family of Christian parents. So, I’m going to church, reading the Bible, praying, trusting God for who he said he is, came directly from that. And was I don't remember a time I didn't believe that Jesus was...God's son the savior of the world I’m just . . .

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

James Edwards: raising a Christian home and follow seeking to follow Christ from all my life and bringing that my work on Capitol Hill as a staffer and in my work at a trade association and other places and to know reflect the glory of Christ and try not to let myself sully at it. It's important to me to seek scripture and to seek the Lord on matters of whatever my work is, including public policy for my case.

Kathleen Noller: Amen. Your book contains a good deal of theology. I wasn’t sure how much it would contain before I read it. So, my question for you also was, you know, you talked a little bit about how your faith has impacted your work, but was there a time where you decided to bring Christianity more explicitly into your work? Has it always been an underlying influence? And has it influenced it more in the sense of influencing your sort of personal compartment and moral compass and things like that? Or even as it seems now more explicitly in influencing your impression of, you know, the history of American law and patent law and how all these things came to be?

James Edwards: Well, I've always tried to be a good witness to for the Lord in the workplace, and in school, in sports, or whatever I may be involved in. It's as I understand it; that's my calling and our calling as Christians is to honor the Lord in all that we do and say and think. And that includes whether it's work or academics or anything else. So, I went to hear some speakers like Francis Schaeffer, like Oz Guinness and others talk about public policy issues from a biblical perspective over the course of my time on capitol hill and thereafter and it's always been something I’ve wanted and tried to apply how to what do the scriptures say i should do about x in this situation? Does the scripture speak in any way to that ye why situation or issue? and how can I apply the principles of the Bible to whatever it is? I mean, pick a policy area, healthcare or transportation or anything else. Some of it's more straightforward than how it looks, but some of it is like Well, there are some broader principles that apply to pretty much every policy area. So, it's, you know, and then there are things like being a good steward of the abilities you've been given. It's so, you know my, my strengths are more in public policy, how do I apply scripture principles to any issue or just being a good worker, a good responsible and unto god for how I do my work and applying scripture to all of life because god is a is over and holds us responsible for all of work, all of life. And so, you know, it's a responsibility, but it's also a blessing. to have some guiding points and teachings and things that that you can apply in a practical manner as well as in a philosophical manner.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

James Edwards: And all of those are important and they're things I’ve tried to do; you know to treat other people the way I'd like to be treated. in the workplace or in in school or wherever to try to well apply the biblical fruits of the Spirit toward people and whatever the situation I find myself in, pleasant or unpleasant. How can they be applied?  The one that frankly comes back to me in my head quite often is the proverb that you can probably remember is a gentle answer turns away wrath. So, try to provide a gentle or quiet answer to some when somebody's bloviating in your face. That's not the natural inclination to respond in that way, but it's what.

Kathleen Noller: Difficult to do.

James Edwards: Your scripture guides that that's the appropriate and wise way to do it. So biblical wisdom is a great source practically. And I appreciate that that is so it’s not all philosophy. It's not all theology. It's not things that are important to know and understand, but it's more than that.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, absolutely. That's very well said. I recently spoke to somebody else who also works in the Washington, D.C. area and is a scientist and had an article written about him that was alleging that he lived a liminal existence and that his work and his faith, his work was sort of a you know very... secular domain, there were demands made upon him that would potentially lead somebody who was Christian to act in ways that were not compatible with scripture. And then on you know on the faith side, that they were two completely different worlds. Have you ever felt like working in Washington, D.C., a very professional predominantly secular city that felt that sort of tension between your faith and anything that you've had to do at work or your job? Or was it that not so much of a part of your field?

James Edwards: Well, I mean, i worked on and a range of issues over the years. Um, as you read my biography, as you can tell, but ye everything from agriculture and banking to, you know, health policy there's some of it's,

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

James Edwards: I don't think I've been in a situation where I didn’t try to act in a godly way and in circumstances. Now, it's not to say I don't fail at that objective all the time, but it is to say that the

Kathleen Noller: Oh, sure, don't we all?

James Edwards: the awareness of what I should do and seeking to do so. doesn't mean I never don't do that. I do it, you know, do the wrong thing way too often, but I don't think I've been in a situation where anybody is, has kind of, put me to in a position of feeling like I was being two different people, know, Christian gym on Sunday and secular gym Monday through Saturday. I think it's been, for whatever reason, it maybe it's the Lord's calling me to and nudging me toward that, but to find the Christian community wherever it may be and fellow believers in Christ. You know went to University of Georgia, and at the time it was one of, and it may be still probably, the biggest party schools in the country. But I found immediately, upon getting in campus on campus, I found the Christian community. And there's and great active student community. body portion of the student body at UGA that was devoutly Christian and the Lord led me to those people to be those with whom I were was closest but I always made an effort to make friends with people in all segments of the  the university community and the student community and so forth so  the same thing on Capitol Hill have friends who happen to be a republican  of course i got a lot of republican friends and quite a few of them are Christians as well and that's great but i also know

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

James Edwards: Democrats have friendships there. I know people who are, you know, one side of the Republican Party and some who are on the other side and have had friendships across all those kinds of, I don't know, lines or maybe better choices aisle.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, that's very encouraging. And I think for those who are listening, I've especially heard this sort of concern from younger Christians who are scared to step out into the world, even if they find themselves blessed with a particular aptitude, particular talents for an area such as law or science or whatever it might be,  that they are often concerned to step into a secular university or into a job where they think they're going to be placed in a compromising position where they'll have to find conflicts between their job and their faith at times. But I think it can be, as you're pointing out, an incredible witness to be in that position and then to be, you know, one of the Christians there who is acting in a very godly manner and reaching across the aisle and so on and so forth. So, I’m very encouraged to hear that. And I think all our listeners will be as well.  I'd love to segue into the first part of your book now, and that we've gotten to know you a little bit. So, the first part of your book is on creativity. So, you've discussed, you know, creativity, ownership, and then property law. So first you talk about sort of laying the groundwork, how humans are created in the image of God. and therefore, possess characteristics derived from him, one of which is creativity. Can you explain to our listeners why you believe creativity not only to be intrinsic to nature, but as something that is related to the Judeo-Christian God?

James Edwards: Well, the scripture starts out selling in the first part of the scripture of early parts of Genesis says not only that God created the heavens and the earth, but soon thereafter, it gets to the point where he the Lord creates human beings, Adam and Eve to begin with. And he charges them. He charged Adam even before the fall and ye even before he created Eve. was He charged them to work and so there's a mandate for human beings in the in the pre-fall at time and it continues because it goes to every single human being because it, we're told that that god created man and in his own image. We alone, among all creation, all types of creatures, we're the only one that has certain attributes that God possesses. And he graciously shares them with him and creativity being one of those. And it's something that we're wired with. It’s not something we can escape and it's not you know there's a broad range of aptitudes of creativity some of us are you know more musically inclined or more inclined toward science or you know those sorts of areas some of us more toward expressive things you know painting and dance, you know all those sorts of fine arts, and then the useful arts, of industrial arts that that others or have more capability in. But all of us have something, and it's what the Lord provides us with as a means by which we apply ourselves and in those ways that and it's glorifying to him, or at least it can be. I mean, you can make ugly art. You can make in a blasphemous art, of course. But art done to God's glory is different it does is something that is capable it can be done and it's something that can show whether it's in the form of negotiating a sound public policy that gets support from different corners of the political spectrum that’s there's beauty in that that's creativity too being able to develop and negotiate a framework of legislation or policy that  draws people together instead of driving people apart.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, absolutely. It reminds me a little bit, your discourse in your book reminded me a little bit of J.R.R. Tolkien's essay on fairy stories. So here he's talking about creation of a fairy tale, but he deems it sub-creation by humans, this sort of you knows creative ability that we get from God because we're made in the image of our ultimate creator. And then we can use this trait to reflect divine sub-creation in stories like fairy tales in this case. but It's very much the same thing that you're discussing there. And you touched on it a little bit about the ability to create something good or for evil or perhaps blasphemous art or beautiful art. One of my later questions for you was, how has the fall affected creativity in your opinion? Do you think that it's known something that has been perverted by the fall? Or do you think creativity is just always this inherent good that then perhaps the objects that we create can be used for evil, but creativity itself is still preserved as a good because it's part of God’s part of God's character or essence?

James Edwards: Its creativity is... isn't something that's inherently good necessarily. I think it's something that is. i mean, it is inherently good from a general sense of it’s a quality that God possesses and that he shares with us. But we may, after fall, find ourselves unwell driven or yielding to temptation to create something that is for an ungodly purpose at that point it's not good art that art is you know whatever category it falls in ugly or blasphemous or something else evil might be the more general category and just the others are just specific aspects of evil. But no, it's something that we have a responsibility to use to God's glory. And that's the that's the deciding factor of whether art is good or not, if it's if it glorifies God.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, absolutely. You touch on this as well in your book, but oftentimes I'll hear people say, well, hold on. If creativity is this trait from God, then why aren't Christians who have this indwelling Holy Spirit more creative than the rest of humanity? Why aren't they you know better at this or more imbued at this trait? So, you discuss common grace in your book. Can you help us understand that concept and how we can wrap our heads around the fact that Christians aren't or don't appear to be disproportionately endowed with good traits like creativity or aptitude in certain disciplines compared to with just the rest of humanity.

James Edwards: It's because all of us live as fallen human beings. We come to earth and life as flawed we have the characteristic of sin indwelling us i mean sin is much deeper than simply committing this sin or that sin or uh or you know sin of omission not doing something i should do it’s much more than that i mean it corrupts it corrupts human beings it corrupts

Kathleen Noller: No!

James Edwards: the earth, the sky everything every part of creation is adversely affected on account of Adam’s sin and our now coming to life sinful even the tiniest newborn baby as lovely as that creature it's still flawed with sin. And so that that means that common grace is where God, he endows in different people for whatever reason he chooses to make one person better, talented in this area and another person drawn to this area or to have certain aptitudes it's not the gold ticket to  a wonderful life here in every respect you know physical beauty uh riches all that sort of stuff i mean just I think of Jeremi , , where it says that Jeremi is asking God, I've got a question. Why does the evil guy have all these great resources and riches and wealth and talents and stuff? Why? And I think we all probably have asked that at some time, but it's something that means that there's somebody who's a debt   devout Christian follower who is...who's trying, but not, you know making the results aren't there for their efforts. And, but then you've got somebody who's not a Christian who comes with some other kind of set of talents in the same area, let's say in electronics or something, and is brilliant and it just all works. That's part of the original sin curse that we all face. Life isn't fair. and course none of us deserve anything from God it's any all his grace and the common grace side means that God shares to all human beings in common certain things among them creativity inherent ownership rights

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

James Edwards: abilities of speech, abilities of understanding, intelligence, the things that that come with everybody. And it extends to, as Jesus gave the example of common grace of the rain falling on the righteous and the unrighteous.

Kathleen Noller: who

James Edwards: Or the, why did that why did that man and end up here as a beggar, lame or deaf from birth or whatever? No, it's not because of his sin. and It's not because of his parents' sin. It's just that sin in this world. It is unfair to everybody. That's just... what common grace is God's intervening to, in a general way, to help all of us to get to get certain things that we don't deserve in our lap. It's rain for the farmer, Christian or unchristian farmer. it saw Its sunshine for the farmer to grow their crops. So, it's all that all of this is not evenly distributed, but some of it like those things are.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, I like the language of the use of the word deserve as we, of course, deserve none of us to deserve any reward or any good thing for what we've done. God gives us gives it to us through his grace. This brings me to the idea of creativity leading into ownership that you've talked about. And then you've stated that ownership is a right. So how do we first relate these two concepts, creativity and ownership, in the Bible specifically? and then we'll tackle how do we define something as a right?

James Edwards: Well, we get ownership but let’s just, it doesn't start in the Bible with this, but let's start with the Ten Commandments where God codified what was the law written on every man's heart, every human being's heart. We know right from wrong in our, whether we own up to that knowledge or not. because it's written in our heart, but God put it in writing. And it's not, if he didn't do it in a way that that says this, that, this, that, and goes down an extensive list. It’s simple right of things. And all of them, every single commandment in the Decalogue, involves somebody's property rights. The first four are God's property discussed. It's you're robbing him of his time if you're breaking the Sabbath. You’re robbing him of his dignity if you use his name in vain. Those sorts of things. And then, you know, it comes down to all the other six commandments look and ye what i get at honoring your father and your mother and those sorts of things. But also, the most obvious one is the commandment, thou shalt not steal.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

James Edwards: And it's clear that if there is commandment against stealing, that press a right of ownership, owning whatever it is that's being stolen.

Kathleen Noller: yes

James Edwards: So where I come at it is, understanding if that is an inherent right to own things then it's also it stands to reason that an individual human being has an inherent right to own what that person conceives and makes into some form puts in an art of an art form of some sort or technological form or whatever it may be but that idea of being that is developed into something of tangible is That's property that did not previously exist. And that's the difference with the products of creativity. There was a spark of an idea. But that individual worked that idea out into some practical use, or some know expressive form. And it's it is property, former property that did not previously exist. And there's no other owner of that property Because in no one else in the whole wide world ever came up with that thought, conception of a device or tool or whatever it may be.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, I like the use of the Ten Commandments there and it is very clear that if you can steal something, then somebody owns it, right? As you said, there are two aspects of ownership that I see occurring in the Old Testament, and I'm curious as to your take on it. So, the first is the tension between familial versus individual property rights. And how the in the Old Testament, it seems to be very focused on, you know, returning, for example, property and in Leviticus. It outlines this year of Jubilee that occurs every year after seven Sabbath years. And in that time, sold or mortgaged land was given back to the original family or clan that received it. via God's allotment in Joshua. So, you have this sort of impression of property rights as a familial concept rather than an individual one at times, and especially in the Old Testament. And then also this fact that, you know, in in the Bible, really everything ultimately belongs to God. So how much how much ownership can we claim that Leviticus, states, the land shall not be sold in perpetuity for the land is mine for your strangers and sojourners with me. So how do we how do you look at those two aspects of ownership, this familial versus individual tension, and then the ownership of the human versus God's ultimate ownership over something?

James Edwards: Well, I was asked about this after the book was all done. It seems more like one of the temporal laws that applied to the nation state of Israel ancient Israel in, and it was god's provision for his people in in the promised land it's not something that that seems it seems to me, like it ought to be considered has as passed. That's not to say that a country couldn't adopt it as a law for itself and that's that would be fine to codify it for a given jurisdiction but it's not something that seems on the order of the ten commandments or the order of the things that changed when the new Old Testament was replaced by the New Testament. That's not to say the Old Testament per se, but those things that were or shadows and indicators of, ye, so the ceremonial laws and things.

Kathleen Noller: Ceremonial laws and things like that.

James Edwards: So, the next question being about the individual law ownership. It seems that that is something that is clear based on not only the one commandment, the sixth commandment, I think it is, but also the multitude of places in scripture that bring out different aspects of individual ownership. And you know Christ gave several David Vogelpohl, Jr.: And I look at the one of the talents is one example and how the owner. Vogelpohl, Jr.: Was free to and then got in Jesus’s parable to know reward the behavior the conduct of the talents that were given and entrusted to the various workers and the one who didn't make something of it uh didn't use his talent ironic term  but It's something that there seems to be, know, the owners who, are of the possessions that he entrusted to them, that gets toward your stewardship. And I'll come back to that in a second.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, sure.

James Edwards: But, but. Further on the ownership, the individual level ownership, you this applies to God as well. It's the potter and the clay metaphor that comes up in scripture is, you know, does not the potter have the right to make goods with this lip of clay for something pretty and this for something, you know, less feeling and common and or to you know midway through the creation of it to start over know pull you know

Kathleen Noller: Yes, honorable and dishonorable, yes. Yes.

James Edwards: break it up and put it back on the wheel and start from scratch. Uh, the new design that's all within the prerogative of the, the owner, the Potter, it's not the clay that has the option of making me a beautiful face.

Kathleen Noller: this

James Edwards: No, you don't get to tell me that I own you. So, it’s the potter and clay that is a metaphor that you see both New and Old Testaments. And it's something that I think even as in the sophisticated modern twenty first century can grasp

Kathleen Noller: Yes, I think that metaphor is going to come into play when we talk about artificial intelligence at the end of this episode. I'm hoping to ask you a few questions related to that at the end. And we sort of, you know, we can laugh about the clay telling the potter, no, make me this.

James Edwards: Thanks

Kathleen Noller: But when you have these large language models now that are able to talk back and it and, you know, AI is not yet nearly at the level of human intelligence, but folks are hoping to bring it there  to sort of come to the next the next level or the next sort of venture in the AI journey. And so, ye, well we'll touch on that later, but that's just a preview for those listening to that we're going to talk about those sorts of questions as well. But I’d like to move to property rights. And so, before we get there, A lot of discourse has often surrounded the influence of the founding fathers by Christianity when they were writing the Constitution or writing other docents or other parts of American law. So, you talk about this a little bit in your book. And so, I'd like to talk about our founding fathers just briefly before we move on to intellectual property. And so, I'll just ask you generally, were the founding fathers influenced by Christianity and writing the Constitution and how deeply were they influenced?

James Edwards: Well, it varies with the very the different individuals, of course, but as looking at it as a cadre, a group that was born in the same era, grew up in the same era, and is influenced like it or not, by the things going on. Well, the founders came along just a couple or so decades after the Great Awakening, the first Great Awakening, when from Georgia to New England, there were preachers going out and Jonathan Edwards and his church who were over several decades, s to s, who were preaching the gospel of Jesus Christ and teaching the Bible and doing it in a very public way, doing it in all corners of the country and there was an outpouring of god's holy spirit that drew people to Jesus and they became Christians and followed Jesus and so that America culturally was affected in a big way by the Great Awakening. So here comes James Madison, George Washington, and others who were born, if not in the time of the Great Awakening, soon thereafter.

I mean, it franklin was one of the older founders who was i mean he heard George Whitfield on many occasions preaching and i mean he just loved what Phil’s preaching and enjoyed it and it's not to say that franklin was a Christian necessarily he may not have been seems but he did have an appreciation for  what Whitfield, one of the more notable of the of English preachers who came over would share the founders were  the founders were affected by and they lived in a society in which the bible was one of the premier books it was like if you didn't own any other book you probably your family probably had a bible but you may not have a big library of other books  but it was something that you know was used in the homes and schools and throughout society. So being familiar with scripture, being biblically literate, characterizes that whole generation, the founding generation. So that's... some to that extent it certainly influenced the work of the founders and the founding of the you united states and it was to the extent were. George Washington and many of the other founders used another biblical metaphor in their public docents and their private correspondence and so forth. Excuse me. We'll cut this.

Kathleen Noller: Take your time.

James Edwards: They use the metaphor of the vine and fig tree and this is something that you find in Mic, and it's something that is cited frequently, incorporated into, as I said, you know by the various of the founders of the vine and fig tree, and having that as a as shade in a peaceful, safe location is something  that is discussed in a book by American University's  Daniel Dreisbach, reading the Bible with the founding fathers. It's a remarkable book, and it's i mean it it's the source of evidence for my work on the extent to which the founders were built biblically literate were influenced by it used those things and apply and to a degree to who applying the biblical principles  in public life so yes the and at the constitutional convention, Madison and Charles Pinckney being a South Carolinian, I mentioned him, but it's true.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

James Edwards: He, Pinckney worked with Madison in proposing toward the end of the convention that an intellectual property clause, and patents and copyright clause be included in the constitution. So, it, In Article, Section, Clause of the Constitution is, for the progress of science and useful arts, Congress has the right or may exclusively enact the law to preserve to provide to secure to secure exclusive rights to for limited time to and this inventors and writers to their creative works. So, it's something that they included. It was... It followed from after the time of declaring our and our independence and then while fighting for it and while working and living under the Articles of Confederation before the Constitution, the founders believed knew of and some of them were involved in passing state laws, these newly independent states.  Most of them had a patent and copyright law on the books. And so, this was a natural thing that they would be familiar with. They had those rights as Englishmen under English law, and then they had them under state jurisdiction. And now it made sense to them to include that because they understood that there's. You're incentivizing creativity by securing rights. It's not government granting rights. It's government securing rights, like its government doesn't grant rights for you you're buying a home, but it secures the rights through with the deed or the title. So that's exactly what the founders saw fit to do. And there were a lot of controversies they overcame in that constitutional convention. This was not one of them. This was about an anti-con...kind of this This was not at all controversial and it just not even voted on, just accepted.

Kathleen Noller: interesting.

James Edwards: So, it's something that they wanted to do. They did it intentionally to combine that, to link ownership and creativity and they did it for a lot of reasons, but not the least of which was it was already what they were used to. They just perfected it beyond what the English provision had been.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, yes. And I think, you know, going back to what you were saying earlier, it’s being sort of post first great awakening and with many of the fathers being Christian or even some like Jefferson and Franklin, like you said, who are more sort of deistic than theistic. It's nonetheless creating that sort of culture that would have influenced the writing of the Constitution of the Founding Fathers in some way or other. There's been a lot of talk recently about this   tension between, or i guess not tension originally, but how enlightenment or classic liberalism principles of individual rights and limited government and then the Christian principles of morality intersected and supported each other in the day the founders, but in the modern day, at least from what I've been reading it from you know outside of this field here,  there's sort of a tension between the two. And so, what I'm reading is that classical liberalism by itself sort of fails to sustain itself by leading to essential cultural fragmentation when it's secularized.  Do you agree with this stance, and do you see these two influences simultaneously on the founding fathers?

James Edwards: I'm kind of basing part of this answer from my research, including in Dry box work that I just mentioned. I think. That certainly the Enlightenment had some degree of influence on the founders, but. I don't. There were so. many variations on the theme of what constitute the enlightenment. from the very secular French to, you know, more   aligned with the biblical and conducive to being not contradictory to Christian and biblical in like the Scottish or English parts of the Enlightenment. So, it's, it’s a yes, but I think that there's and there's a degree to which you know John Locke is generally counted as an enlightenment figure. But Francis Schaeffer talked the about Well, Locke simply used, and I think that’s an overstatement, but Francis Schaeffer said that that Locke took Lex Rex from of Samuel Rutherford, which was overtly Christian and biblical and applied it to kind of secularize the principles and everything. It was it was biblical. in terms of its content but it won't it wasn't as overtly law is king of the lex rex by Jonathan Rutherford Samuel Rutherford.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, understood. So earlier you also mentioned that legal intellectual property protection could benefit society. So, we've talked about or you've talked about how it incentivized or protects creativity. You talked a little bit about protections in your book on basic and translational research as well.  Is this something that is statistically proven or demonstrated that patent law leads to increased innovation or IP protects creativity?  It makes sense a priori, but have we seen this fruit of IP protection played out in America?

James Edwards: Yes. If you look at the economic statistics of the kind the American colonies, when we were dependent upon Britain for all the manufactured goods, they didn't allow manufacturing here other than just very a modest number of certain things. It was basically we provided England with raw goods, which were, refined or created, you know, changed into, a manufactured good and they sold it back to us. So were for, for Britain, it was a great deal they got to have a corner on the technology of manufacturing. They had ready-made markets of their colonies and not only here, you know the other parts of the world where they had colonies as well, but some of them would also have good souls there too. But it was something that I termed as a technological and economic gap that Britain set up for itself. And at the and the founders recognized this. That's why they wanted to. have creativity and ownership connected through intellectual property where there are, is our legal rights secured of securing inherent rights. So, establishing our intellectual property system in the manner they did was deliberate to overcome quickly the technological and economic gaps because We were weak. We beat the big kuna, the strongest Navy and Army in the world. But we were still vulnerable to it and needed to make a lot of headway fast. So that's why we came up with what we did. and you see economic change, statistics from colonial and founding era. And it's like going from this flat to the century, you know, fast growth. By the middle of it you've got many more inventions going on here, much more economic output, much more industrialization. We overtook England and that was remarkable and so that's how the United States in its GDP, its standard of living, all those sorts of things grew rapidly over the centuries.

Kathleen Noller: Understood. So, you mentioned a little bit about how IP protection in the U.S. came about from, I'm understanding correctly, from Madison and Pinckney adding the clause into the Constitution. And you touched on a little bit of the differences between you mentioned it's a little bit different from IP protection in England. Is our IP protection in the U.S. currently different from that of other countries? And does it have any aspect to it that is, would you say, coming from a Judeo-Christian worldview or any sort of influence like that that differentiates it from that of other countries?

James Edwards: The way I would put it is yes, but those portions of our patent and copyright and trademark and those sorts of systems, that remain consistent with what the founders and the early Congresses put into place, and especially up to the law of patent law version. From then on through the nineteen eighty s Ours was aligned as a patent system or p IP system with scripture, whereas you'd see adoption of some aspects of our system by other countries. They model theirs upon ours and in certain respects over that couple of hundred years or under years or years, depending on where you put the marker on the timeline.

Kathleen Noller: Sure.

James Edwards: But We are also you know we've shared the knowledge of what we had created, and they could see it. and they suffered from it for a while. But there's been an alignment in many countries. There's still a great variation.  Some are outright weak patent systems. Ours was a strong patent system, but that got weakened beginning in the end and increasingly over time. now I said for that patent law, which really put us in a position of having all the system working to maximize that creativity and ownership connection. Well, that has been broken down as we adopted antitrust laws and things like that, which became quickly weaponized. And so, you had kind of patent system, particularly NIP system, going against the antitrust enforcers because, you know, everybody who has a hammer sees everything as a nail, right? So, everybody who's an inventor sees everything as a and in and in a way something that can be invented. And all they have got to do is work it out. And they have exclusive rights under the patent that grants limited time, a term of exclusivity, the right to exclude others from using that invention without permission so exclusivity isn't something that uh that anyone who's in who who's a carrying an antitrust hammer thinks shouldn't be a nail so  exclusivity is the nail of all antitrust types or at least most of them and so They're at odds, and it's become increasingly clear that that is the case today but it was you know in different manners over the century as that system of antitrust developed.

Other countries have adopted things like our Bayh-Dole Act for technology transfer of government-funded research findings, those inventions. Our Bayh-Dole Act has been copied by many countries. We have trade-related research intellectual property set of laws that came about in and it's trying to raise, it was intent was to raise the intellectual property protections around the world in different jurisdictions and  so that had some but it also worked detrimentally because in some respects we were the some of the American industry and government officials were willing to weaken our system instead of requiring other countries in in certain cases to raise their system and increase their level of protection. So, it's not clean but it's a It gets messy in those kinds of aspects. And so there’s still a lot that represents the core foundation of biblical principles that underlie the founding era's intellectual property system but it's been you know as it's developed and courts come into play with different judges who making different rulings it's uh it's something that that still I’d say in general it aligns biblically but it's not nearly as good as it was,

Kathleen Noller: Okay. How would you bring it more into alignment biblically? Would that be softening the antitrust laws? Is it that simple? Or what would be your proposed solution if you had unilateral control?

James Edwards: well, I'd say restore some of the things. There was one law enacted in, the America Invents Act. It took a swipe and did a lot of things that were core to the original American system. Namely, keeping things like keeping the information about an unissued patent application quiet and secret unless and until a patent was issued. And so now they publish patents, thanks to not preceded by just a couple of years, the AIA, but the publication of patent applications at months, whether it's been issued or not, you're giving China and everybody else in the world American-made technology that's not even on the market yet.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

James Edwards: It doesn't make any sense. But that's what is one of the big things that occurred. And I don't think getting rid of antitrust or weakening it is.

Kathleen Noller: So.

James Edwards: What the I would describe was needed, I think it would be to require antitrust to be balanced. Because there are antitrust experts who understand and appreciate the fact that exclusivity under intellectual property on something that's novel is boon to competition. It creates dynamic competition. What antitrust is best at is dealing with static competition, i.e. well-established industries, markets, but not something that are brand new, new markets, so new inventions that haven't gotten from small pond to big pond yet. So, they treat small ponds as if they were big lakes.

Kathleen Noller: That makes sense.

James Edwards: And it's just a misunderstanding or willful ignorance or whatever it may be but it's a situation where antitrust  can and does kill novel things that could be extremely beneficial for raising our standard of living in certain ways and all kinds of creating wealth that get killed because uh because of misconstrue of what should be antitrust enforcement.

Kathleen Noller: That makes sense. I also want to ask you, and so in my research field, I'm a scientist, so it's common to leave software, algorithms, even data from, you mentioned the Han Genome Project in your book, in the public domain for all to benefit from. And this is generally, I would say, widely practiced in the scientific community. It's seen as something for the greater good of scientific advancement. Do you have a litmus test about how to balance when an innovation should be shared versus protected as an individual's property right? And if I understand correctly also, I don't think algorithms can be patented because they're considered abstract ideas anyway. So perhaps that's not relevant there. But what is your ye what is your litmus test for sharing an innovation versus protecting it as an individual's property right.

James Edwards: If it's something that I don't I don't think I've got a litmus test as such. I think it's it comes down to is there something that. Can be. Like that, like the human genome. that is extensively applicable in so many things.  That may be one factor to consider in a legitimate agent for keeping it in the public domain.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

James Edwards: But the problem is trying to decide that on the front end. That's the struggle because you don't know.

Kathleen Noller: Yes

James Edwards: I mean, there are so many, there are millions of inventions every year and you don't know which one is going to be commercially successful.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, it's true.

James Edwards: And every time that something foundational is invented, either somebody's going to get fabulously wealthy and rightly so because they're the one brilliant enough to come up with it and to commercialize it even more so. That's even as challenging as the invention part of the picture.

Kathleen Noller: Absolutely.

James Edwards: They've got to get investors. They've got to get things lined up to produce. good productize it and how to distribute it and all that sort of thing. But most inventions aren't commercially successful, at least not in a significant way. Most of them, especially smaller inventors, like they're honored by the fact that they have their deed on that property that they created. And there's, they should be honored by that. I mean, that is something that not all human beings do. It's not something, even though we're all creative, it's not something that many people do to get that. And it's something that is laudable. But coming back to

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

James Edwards: Being unable for the government, some bureaucrat, to decide that so we should make this public domain today because it might become commercially successful and well, you don't know that. And it's not, it's rather let the market decide that because that's a million decision makers, not a small room of people who have more power than they ought. And the other thing is the founders created a patent system that we said a minute ago was different from what they had in England and had lived under. What it did in the in the United States, the individual, the inventor gets the patent, and that is a securing of exclusive rights for a limited time, years, years, what's typically something in that range over the course of a couple of centuries you but what's the public get immediately? The public immediately, we talked about, the publication of patents before patents are issued on the invention. And I think that is crazy. But what they did what originally was to say, we keep it secret because it's your property. But until we determine, okay, this is new property and here are the boundary lines. Then we're issuing a deed, a patent on that per property that we determined to be new newly created property.

It is new. It is useful. It is non-obvious. And so immediately at that point, the world gets the learnings, the patents public then public and everybody can learn from it and optimally and appropriately other inventors in that area can invent around that invention and move the state of the art forward. So, you get... the benefit of learnings, you get smart people in that art working immediately toward making improvements. And every improvement advances the state of the art, which means we're moving forward. And again, the term in the constitution is the purpose statement for the progress of science, that is knowledge, and useful arts. And that's why you get you get exclusive exclusivity over your invention. But I get the learnings, and I can invent around it and come up with something that's new and improved. So, everybody wins. And then at the end of the patent term, it's only you less a couple of decades or less. And then anybody and his brother is free to use that invention, to sell that invention, to make that invention, to trade on that invention without a license because the patents expired so it's a temporary term of exclusivity it's immediate learnings for the public and the payoff and that this whole thing is called the patent bargain uh but the inventor gets something i.e. the first shot at making the market making the product and that's exactly what Samuel morse did with this telegraph.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

James Edwards: He worked on that commercializing it after he uh perfected the invention and that was a foundational cultural and civic and uh social and economic advancement that changed the lives of many millions of people You can now get information immediately instead of at the right of the fastest train or horse or whatever.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, it does seem like an excellent way to both reward and incentivize the inventors and incentivize creativity, but also to protect them, right, while giving something advantageous to the public. I'd love to chat about, we're coming to the end of our time here, and I do want to chat about a i So this of course, is the hot button topic, and I think you have a unique perspective on it. So, of course, a lot of AI models are trained on training data. And that is not their own data. That is not their own creation. But they train on it and then they spit out some result from that that... Amy Latta- may considered unique who knows, but my question for you is, do you think will ever be considered a creator on its own and how can we determine what is a unique product of Ai if it's trained on somebody else's creations.

James Edwards: I fear that it will be deemed a creator.  I don't think it should be. It's important to keep distinct the difference between the tool and the one who made that tool.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

James Edwards: And they're very smart people, who design these basically tools, computerized tools, and they're doing great work, fabulous work. But at the end of the day, what's the creative output?  It's something that’s got to be human...  Design, input human management human decision making in terms of making technical changes and advancements and those sorts of things and so I don’t know how it should ever be deemed, be given credit as an inventor or a creator. I think, the and the other thing I'll add is it's wrong to train on unlicensed data or work. If you're scooping on all kinds of things that are, know, the recording music and movies and everything and taking it training on the entire work, that is not fair use. It's just, it's just, it's theft. You should license it. I don't care if it's expensive. The fact is, if you must have that many licenses, you have got to pay the market value to the owner or else it's illegitimate usage.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

James Edwards: So that's a sticking point that I have with that. But I’m excited about AI in terms of its possibilities. I think it comes in that category of inventions that are new generally neutral and can be used for good or can be used for evil

Kathleen Noller: yes

James Edwards: But it's it is something that holds a lot of promise, especially in the science area. I mean, the use of AI too, you know, about it just last weekend in the Wall Street Journal, I believe it was, and about the coming up with rapid identifying identification of potential new pharmaceuticals that would overcome antibacterial resistance that's that some diseases or you now are over they're resistant to antibiotics. And so, getting the next generation of antibiotics that can't be as quickly adapted to by a disease or virus. So that's exciting to me. The prospects, but at the same time, it it's It is a tool. It's not an inventor. It's not a creator.

Kathleen Noller: Yes.

James Edwards: Any more than your loan then your laundry you're laundry and all those sorts of things that we have as tools.

Kathleen Noller: And I think this is...

Kathleen Noller: Yes, I think this is where it links nicely back to your biblical principles as well that, you know, AI is a tool, but it's not humanity. It doesn't have, wasn't created in the image of God, even if it may possess, eventually, who knows the level of intelligence of an average human. It's still not created in the image of God. And so, it's, you know, not imbued with those characteristics of God, one of them being true creativity.  I'll and let you ask one last question on ai which is, do you think it's going to influence IP law? And if so, how do you think it will do so?

James Edwards: It Probably, yes, it will.  It already has in some respects. I mean, the copyright U.S. Copyright Office, the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office have already begun using it and making policies around it. And it certainly will. It’s work in progress. It'll change everything. I don't know where it lands. It's hard to predict where it lands because of the thing that scares me is the human rule makers who will not have an appreciation for the biblical worldview. We'll reject it and see this as just another great thing that deserves credit for being a machine and spitting out whatever machines come up with.

Kathleen Noller: Yes, God only knows where we'll end up with that, but it's interesting to think about as we conclude our discussion, i always like to conclude with a quote. So, I have one. I mentioned J.R.R. Tolkien's fairy stories essay earlier and how he talks about sub-creation. So, I'll read a quote from him. We make in our measure and in our derivative mode because we are made and not only made but made in the image and likeness of a maker. Thus, even as a poet, as a creator, man is sub-creator. So, I think this is also very well reflected in the book that we've discussed today. And thank you so, so much, Mr. Edwards, for your time today. Thank you for teaching us about intellectual property and for reminding us that we are created in in the image of God and how our humanity should influence our work, whether that's intellectual property, law more generally, or just wherever we happen to be working, that we do so as, as witnesses, , and, , with proper respect for, our role as, as creatures, with respect to our maker. So, thank you so much for this discussion today.

James Edwards: My pleasure. It’s great to be with you.

Kathleen Noller: Thank you.