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Patents As Property: Conceptualizing The Exclusive Right(S) In Patent Law, Adam Mossoff
Patents As Property: Conceptualizing The Exclusive Right(S) In Patent Law, Adam Mossoff
Adam Mossoff
The conventional wisdom is that the definition of patents as property has been long settled: unlike land and chattels, which secure the traditional "bundle" of rights, patents secure only a negative right to exclude. In exploring the history of American patent law, this Article reveals that this claim is profoundly mistaken. For much of its history, a patent was defined by Congress and courts in the same conceptual terms as property in land and chattels, as securing the exclusive rights of possession, use and disposition. Nineteenth-century courts explicitly used this substantive conception of patents to create many longstanding legal doctrines, …
Patents As Property: Conceptualizing The Exclusive Right(S) In Patent Law, Adam Mossoff
Patents As Property: Conceptualizing The Exclusive Right(S) In Patent Law, Adam Mossoff
Adam Mossoff
The conventional wisdom is that the definition of patents as property has been long settled-—patents secure only a right to exclude. In exploring the intellectual history of American patent law, this Article reveals that this claim is profoundly mistaken. For much of its history, Congress and courts defined a patent in the same conceptual terms as property in land and chattels, as securing the exclusive rights of possession, use and disposition. Nineteenth-century courts explicitly used this substantive conception of patents to create many longstanding doctrines in the American patent system, such as the conveyance default rules now known as patent …