

A Stitch in Time: The Rise and Fall of the Sewing Machine Patent Thicket [pdf] - dwwoelfel
http://www.law.gmu.edu/assets/files/publications/working_papers/0919StitchinTime.pdf

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dwwoelfel
The abstract of the paper:

The history of patents begins, not with inventions, but with royal grants of
industrial monopolies in the fifteenth century. By the end of the eighteenth
century, however, patents represent a legal right to property in a novel
mechanical or scientific invention. Commentators today maintain that this
radical shift from royal monopoly privilege to legal property right occurred
solely in response to economic or institutional demands. While political,
economic and institutional conditions certainly played a role in this story,
this article maintains that the ideas of John Locke were the fountainhead
behind the evolution of patents for inventions.

Although there were fits and starts toward a new patent doctrine in the
seventeenth century, the watershed moment occurred when the common law courts
acquired jurisdiction over patents from the Privy Council in the mid-
eighteenth century. The common law judges - learned men steeped in the
traditional rights of Englishmen and the philosophy of natural rights -
redefined the doctrine of patents by drawing upon the ideas that formed the
basis of their own political and legal philosophy. The result was the novelty
and the specification requirements, which are first described by Lord
Mansfield and Justice Buller in terms that reflect John Locke's labor theory
of property and social contract theory. In surveying the historical record,
i.e., in looking at the ways in which royal councilors, judges and inventors
conceived of patents between 1550 and 1800, the influence of Locke's ideas
upon this important legal doctrine is evident. This provenance of patent law
thus suggests that an inventor's moral right to the property in one's
invention should play a role in the ongoing debate concerning the protections
afforded by the patent laws.

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dwwoelfel
The author of this paper, Adam Mosoff, has written many papers on intellectual
property. They are available at SSRN:
[http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=3456...](http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/cf_dev/AbsByAuth.cfm?per_id=345663)

