In his ruling, judge Edmundo Rodríguez Achútegui recognized that Calatrava’s rights as author of the bridge had been infringed, but he ruled that the public utility of the addition took precedence over this private right. “In addition to constituting a singular artistic creation suitable for protection, the work is public one, offering a service to the citizens, and thus satisfies a public interest,” he said. “If we weigh these interests, the public must prevail over the private.

ecause such accumulation is less typical, the realm of intellectual property has less of the laborer/capitalist hierarchy of Marxist theory.

What makes number theory interesting is that problems that are simple to state (at least to mathematicians) are often fiendishly difficult to solve. The most famous such problem, Fermat's last theorem, was postulated in the 17th century. It took until 1993 to prove that it was true.