Or something that is tying innovators big and small in knots and befits only mischief-makers bent on making money in the courts rather than in laboratories.

BBC: Do the patent wars threaten innovation?

Conspiracy-minded reformists refer to the Persian verses that relate the endeavours of a Jewish king to sow discord among his Christian subjects, by planting his mischief-making minister among them in the guise of a convert.

ECONOMIST: Iranian justice

Much of it is an elegantly presented narrative of information already in the public domain about Soviet mischief-making during the cold war.

ECONOMIST: The Mitrokhin archive

Some think the thaw in relations between Warsaw and Moscow has sparked mischief-making.

ECONOMIST: Lithuania and Poland seem to have hit an icy impasse