Doron Ben-Atar

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Doron Ben-Atar (b. 1957) is an American historian noted for his work on commercial policy and intellectual property. He is Professor of History at Fordham University.

He is a noted expert on intellectual property piracy, “where he has “rocked the current patent debate by saying that piracy is not only inevitable, it may even be beneficial.” [1] He makes “a sensational case: U.S. economic development was founded on the illegal misappropriation of intellectual property.” [2]

Business World India calls him “a genial giant from the world of academia” who has “has managed to undermine the conventional arguments in today's hotly debated question of who owns intellectual property (IP) - simply by looking at the issue through the prism of the past.” [3]

Ben-Atar maintains that “it is impossible to contain the abuse of technology without undermining the free flow of knowledge that is the prerequisite for innovation.” [4]

Not all responses have been favorable. Christine MacLeod of Bristol University wrote “Doron S. Ben-Atar wears his heart on his sleeve. It's a good heart, but historically the wrong sleeve.” [5]

His work on intellectual policy builds on his earlier work on Jefferson, in which he criticized Jefferson, who “vacillated between viewing commerce as a threat to republican virtue,” and recognizing the necessity of promoting prosperity, and that this led Jefferson to “fail to recognize America’s larger stake in defeating Napoleonic France.” [6] [7]

Ben-Atar grew up in Israel, the child of a holocaust survivor. [8]

[edit] Books

  • Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power (Yale University Press, 2004)
  • What Time and Sadness Spared: Mother and Son Confront the Holocaust together with Roma Nutkiewicz Ben-Atar (University of Virginia Press, 2006)
  • The Origins of Jeffersonian Commercial Policy and Diplomacy (Macmillan, 1993).
  • Federalists Reconsidered, co-edited with Barbara B. Oberg (University Press of Virginia, 1998)

[edit] Selected Articles

  • "Pirates of the Potomac," Legal Affairs (2004)
  • "Pride, Ambition and Resentment: The American Revolution Revisited," for the Oxford History of the British Empire (2000)
  • "The Jewish American Question," Journal of Urban History (1999);
  • "Nationalism, Neo-Mercantilism, and Diplomacy: Rethinking the Franklin Mission," Diplomatic History (1998).

[edit] References

  1. ^ [ http://www.businessworldindia.com/feb0705/indepth01.asp]
  2. ^ Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power
  3. ^ [ http://www.businessworldindia.com/feb0705/indepth01.asp]
  4. ^ Doron Ben-Atar, Hollywood Profits v. Technological Progress, Chronicle of Higher Education, April 1, 2005
  5. ^ Trade Secrets, Christine MacLeod, Technology and Culture, Vol. 46, No. 2. (Apr., 2005), p. 443.
  6. ^ A Companion to American Foreign Relations, By Robert D. Schulzinger, 2003, p. 52
  7. ^ Thomas Jefferson: Reputation and Legacy by Francis D. Cogliano, 2006, Page 250
  8. ^ “Playwright bases play on his mother’s Auschwitz experience,” Howard Blas, Jewish Ledger, April 10, 2007 [1]