Loyal readers of this blog know that last school year my daughter engaged in a bit of plagiarism in a school essay on Jesse Owens. Since that time we've had many discussions about the value of intellectual property.

This weekend brought two bits of pride to her father. One, she wrote a 5-paragraph essay for school on Egyptian culture and used all her own words (it was a good read, too, I learned a lot about mummies). Two, she showed an understanding of the patent system that the commons movement still lacks.

We were driving in my car, and she made an observation about how "cars of the future" would have a certain feature. I thought about it; this feature she mentioned seems doable, but I don't believe any current car has it. (It's not my idea, it's my daughter's, so I won't share the details here.) I told her it may be an original idea. "Then I'm the inventor!" she said enthusiastically. "I'll get one of those, um, what are they called?"

"Patents," I said.

"Right, a patent! How do I do that?"

I told her the hard truth. FIrst, she has to apply to the USPTO, and pony up a fair amount of cash. Then, she has to wait a year or two for a decision. Then, it may not be granted.

"But it's a great idea!" she said.

I agreed. But the PTO might view it as "obvious," even though no one is currently manufacturing it. Also, someone else may have been working on it first.

"I'll file before them!" she said.

I explained that would work in most of the world but not in the US, where it is first to invent.

Still, she was willing to do all this to have the patent. "If I have that patent, anybody making a car would have to come to me and pay me if they wanted to use it!" she said. I agreed, pointing out she could even decline to license it if she so chose. What did she want the money for?

"For school tuition."

She's been going to the same parochial school since kindergarten, but it's expensive, and her mother has talked about taking her out next year and putting her in public school. She and a classmate are putting together a babysitting business so my daughter can raise enough money to pay the tuition herself and thwart her mother.

I explained to my daughter that there are some people in the world who aren't comfortable with one person having power over a technology. Those people believe that since everyone in the commons can benefit from her technology, she should just make it available for free so that everyone can use it and do cool things with it.

"But then I wouldn't make any money," she pointed out. "Why would I bother to create it if I couldn't get paid for it?"

Well, she had me there.