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Dealing With Old Father William, Or Moving From Constitutional Text To Constitutional Doctrine: Progress Clause Review Of The Copyright Term Extension Act, Malla Pollack
Malla Pollack
The author suggests a textual approach to the choice of review standards for statutes enacted purusant to the so-called Intellectual Property Clause, which is more properly named the Progress Clause. Turning to text of the Constitution s relatively unproblematic because the Progress Clause contains unusually detailed constitutional text. Furthermore, what little the Court has stated about the fundamental goals of the Clause matches the author's reading of its text. Any approach based on the drafting or ratification discussions stumbles on the thinness of the record, as well as the record's possible unreliability. The text supports a standard of review higher …
What Is Congress Supposed To Promote? Defining ‘Progress” In Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 Of The U.S. Constitution, Or Introducing The Progress Clause, Malla Pollack
Malla Pollack
Empirical reserach into ratification-era uses of the word "progress" in the United States demonstrates that this word, as used in Article One, Section Eight, Clause Eight, means "spread," i.e. diffusion, distribution. To the extent that Congress chooses not to act under this clause, the default position is that each person in the United States has a property right not to be excluded from publicly accessible knowledge and technology. Congress has only a very limited power to create private quasi-property, i.e., rights to exclude the rest of the commoners. Congress may only create temporary individual rights for "authors" or "inventors" to …