The United States Patent Office

Abstract

When the Constitutional Convention met in Philadelphia in May, 1787, one of the basic problems for solution was to determine whether a strong national government was to be formed or whether a confederation of the states was to be the basic framework of the new government.When once the decision in favor of the former plan was, adopted, the Convention had little difficulty in determining that the grant of letters patent for inventions was a national function.Many of the states before the adoption of the Constitution had, by special legislative acts, granted letters patent for inventions, following the historical precedent of such grants by the sovereigns in England.'In England all special monopolies granted by the Crown were declared illegal by the Statute of Monopolies, passed in 1623 during the reign of James I, but that act specifically excepted the grant of letters patent to true and first inventors for the sole right of making and working new manufactures within the realm, for a term limited to fourteen years or less.&2 It is not surprising, with this historical background, therefore, that when the final draft of the Constitution was adopted by the Convention in September, 1787, it contained the specific provision that:Congress shall have the power ... to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to .. .inventors the exclusive right to their .. .discoveries. 8The framers of our Constitution, with rational foresight, viewed the grant of limited monopolies to inventors primarily as a means of promoting the industrial development of the new republic and emphasized this primary objective by the phraseology of the constitutional provision.The means to accomplish this primary objective was the provision for securing to inventors, as a reward or incentive, the exclusive right to enjoyment of their discoveries.The profit motive to the inventor was the spur to activity of inventors.The constitutional provision, therefore, not only recognized that the public interest would be served by the grant of letters patent, but it also recognized that, as a matter of incentive and of common justice, one who contributed to the public wealth of *Commissioner of Patents.