Open Access. Powered by Scholars. Published by Universities.®
Articles 1 - 1 of 1
Full-Text Articles in Law
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, …