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Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®

2006

Constitutional law

Intellectual Property Law

Articles 1 - 2 of 2

Full-Text Articles in Law

Who Cares What Thomas Jefferson Thought About Patents: Reevaluating The Patent "Privilege" In Historical Context, Adam Mossoff Mar 2006

Who Cares What Thomas Jefferson Thought About Patents: Reevaluating The Patent "Privilege" In Historical Context, Adam Mossoff

ExpressO

The conventional wisdom holds that American patents have always been grants of special monopoly privileges lacking any justification in natural rights philosophy, a belief based in oft-repeated citations to Thomas Jefferson's writings on patents. Using privilege as a fulcrum in its analysis, this Article reveals that the history of early American patent law has been widely misunderstood and misused. In canvassing primary historical sources, including political and legal treatises, Founders' writings, congressional reports, and long-forgotten court decisions, it explains how patent rights were defined and enforced under the social contract doctrine and labor theory of property of natural rights philosophy. …


Freedom Of Expression (R): Overzealous Copyright Bozos And Other Enemies Of Creativity (Book Review), Matthew Rimmer Dec 2005

Freedom Of Expression (R): Overzealous Copyright Bozos And Other Enemies Of Creativity (Book Review), Matthew Rimmer

Matthew Rimmer

Of late, there has been a spate of popular and academic books decrying that copyright law has a detrimental impact upon freedom of expression. Most notably, in Free Culture, Lawrence Lessig has tilted at the comforting, consoling fiction of the Supreme Court of the United States in Harper & Row that ‘copyright is an engine of free expression’. He complains:

"Now that technology enables us to rebuild the library of Alexandria, the law gets in the way. And it doesn’t get in the way for any useful copyright purpose, for the purpose of copyright is to enable the commercial market …