I've already had that discussion with db. Patent attorneys (in my humble experience and opinion) make the claim intentionally convoluted and obscure. This is done to intentionally hide knowledge, yet provide a means to sue another party later.
As an engineering manager, I had to read patents to ensure that we weren't going down paths that were going to get us into trouble. While not a patent attorney, I have some experience from an actual IP perspective on these things.
So, with all due respect, I have to disagree on the ease of searchability.

Why do you think that Objectivism has the proper insight for economic theory? I'm not sure that I'd make that argument for other sciences - medicine, physics, astronomy, etc. Why should it be a necessary foundation for economics?

negative contracts are non-sensical. You'll have to do better than that.

But to get back to the original theme - by and large the Austrian School does in fact support private property rights. As with many things, there are of course exceptions/nuances.

If they were natural rights, then they must have existed and exist independent of a legal authority. This has not been the case historically.
For example, I've worked for several companies in which I was required to sign away my IP rights as a condition of employment. If it were a natural right, then this would not be permissible.

Good info.

The problem that I have with patent law in particular is the concept of "prior art." Regardless of whether an entity (person or company) develops an idea totally independently, if it were documented by someone else at an earlier time, then that earlier instance has primacy. That seems immoral to me. I understand protecting the investment that one makes in an innovation from being ripped off by another who then uses the idea to make profit without having incurred the original investment, but should that protection override the first instance of independent development?

I think you need to dig a few paragraphs deeper into the post to get to the real nugget of the issue -

"Kinsella presents this view of intellectual property as a creation of the State; an artificial construct that would not exist in a free market system. I believe this is the main reason for libertarian opposition to the concept of intellectual property – because it is framed in the context of the State, and associated with all of the terrible things that the State and crony capitalist firms have done in the name of IP. From the evil censorship laws proposed in CISPA and SOPA to major corporations like Apple using IP laws to shut down competition through “patent trolling”, the State and it’s crony partners in crime have used intellectual property as a cover for all sorts of nasty, anti-liberty maneuvers."

IP as codified by patent and copyright laws are in fact artificial creations of the state.

I think that Kelley went into that paper with a specific objective to negate the views of Hayek.
Hayek is often criticized for the statement that if there were a omniscient entity that knew all effects and future effects there would be no cause for liberty. This, of course, is impossible for humanity, so the very idea is merely a thought experiment. Since this is not the case, then the most efficient means for an economy is through full liberty.

And here's some info on Rothbard:

Rothbard's Man, Economy, and State (1963) was patterned after Human Action, and in some areas--monopoly theory, utility and welfare, and the theory of the state--tightened and trengthened Mises's own views. Rothbard's approach to the Austrian School followed directly in the line of Late Scholastic thought by applying economic science within a framework of a natural-rights theory of property. What resulted was a full-fledged defense of a capitalistic and stateless social order, based on property and freedom of association and contract.

Here's something I found on the Mises.org site (see paragraph 3):

The story of the Austrian School begins in the fifteenth century, when the followers of St. Thomas Aquinas, writing and teaching at the University of Salamanca in Spain, sought to explain the full range of human action and social organization.

These Late Scholastics observed the existence of economic law, inexorable forces of cause and effect that operate very much as other natural laws. Over the course of several generations, they discovered and explained the laws of supply and demand, the cause of inflation, the operation of foreign exchange rates, and the subjective nature of economic value--all reasons Joseph Schumpeter celebrated them as the first real economists.

The Late Scholastics were advocates of property rights and the freedom to contract and trade. They celebrated the contribution of business to society, while doggedly opposing taxes, price controls, and regulations that inhibited enterprise. As moral theologians, they urged governments to obey ethical strictures against theft and murder. And they lived up to Ludwig von Mises's rule: the first job of an economist is to tell governments what they cannot do.

Plenty of folks who are in the Libertarian party but aren't really libertarians. Many of them are anarchists. That might explain the thinking on property rights.
I don't know where you got the info on Austrian school and intellectual property. I'm no expert, but that doesn't jibe with what I understand about the body of thought. Innovation is a key aspect of the Austrian School, and so I would find it hard to believe that they would advocate policies that would hinder innovation. Can you provide a source? I'd be interested in where that came from.