Title
Commercializing Property Rights In Inventions: Lessons For Modern Patent Theory From Classic Patent Doctrine
Author
Adam Mossoff, Visiting Professor of Law, Washington & Lee University School of Law ; Associate Professor of Law,
Date
10/20/2008
(Original Publish Date: 6/16/2011)
(Original Publish Date: 6/16/2011)
Abstract
In 1859, Abraham Lincoln famously observed that the "patent system . . . secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things." Lincoln understood this point all too well, as he remains the only U.S. President to have obtained a patent (which was still in force at the time he gave this speech). Today, scholars and lawyers often quote this passage from Lincoln's 1859 speech as a poetic exemplar of the long-standing policy justification for the patent system it promotes inventive activity and progress of the useful arts by adding the fuel of interest to the fire of genius.