Law Commons^™

The Owned Public Domain: The Constitutional Right Not To Be Excluded – Or The Supreme Court Chose The Right Breakfast Cereal In Kellogg V. National Biscuit Co., Malla Pollack

Malla Pollack

Before the rise of law and economics, the Supreme Court decided several cases involving patent holders' attempts to use trademark doctrines to slow down competitors after the expiration of their utility patents; in each of these cases, the Court enforced a public right to use material in the public domain. To give one famous example, Kellogg Co. v. National Biscuit Co., the "shredded wheat case," came to the Court after the expiration of a product and process utility patent on that once-innovative breakfast cereal. The Court held that a competitor could freely copy the product's name and its well known …