Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8

Document 11

St. George Tucker, Blackstone's Commentaries 1:App. 265--67

8. Congress have power to promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries. C. U. S. Art. 1, Sect. 8.

This is another branch of federal authority, in which I presume the states may possess some degree of concurrent right within their respective territories; but as the security which the state could afford, would necessarily fall short of that which an authority co-extensive with the union may give, it is scarcely probable that the protection of the laws of any particular state will hereafter be resorted to; more especially, as the act of 2 Cong. c. 55, declares, that "where any state before it's adoption of the present form of government shall have granted an exclusive right to any invention, the party claiming that right, shall not be capable of obtaining an exclusive right under that act, but on relinquishing his right under such particular state, and of such relinquishment his obtaining an exclusive right under that act, shall be sufficient evidence." But this act does not appear to extend to copy-rights: the exclusive right to which is secured by an act passed, 1 Cong. 2 Sess. c. 15, amended by the act of 7 Cong. c. 36, for fourteen years; and if at the expiration of that term, the author being living, the same exclusive right shall be continued to him and his heirs, for other fourteen years. But the exclusive rights of other persons to their inventions, is limited to fourteen years, only, by the act first mentioned. Aliens, who have resided two years in the United States, are moreover entitled to the benefit of a patent for any new invention, by virtue of the act of 6 Cong. c. 25.

Whether it was under this clause of the constitution, or not, that the first secretary of the treasury grounded his opinion of the right of congress to establish trading companies, for the purpose of encouraging arts and manufactures; or whether it was under this clause, that the establishment of a company for the discovery of mines, minerals, and metals, was contemplated by the authors of that scheme; or whether it was from a conviction of the unconstitutionality of the proposition, in both cases, that neither of them took effect, I cannot presume to determine: but, certainly, if this clause of the constitution was relied upon, as giving congress a power to establish such monopolies, nothing could be more fallacious than such a conclusion. For the constitution not only declares the object, but points out the express mode of giving the encouragement; viz. "by securing for a limited time to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings, and discoveries." Nothing could be more superfluous, or incompatible, with the object contended for, than these words, if it was, indeed, the intention of the constitution to authorise congress, to adopt any other mode which they might think proper.

The Founders' Constitution
Volume 3, Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8, Document 11
http://press-pubs.uchicago.edu/founders/documents/a1_8_8s11.html
The University of Chicago Press

Tucker, St. George. Blackstone's Commentaries: With Notes of Reference to the Constitution and Laws of the Federal Government of the United States and of the Commonwealth of Virginia. 5 vols. Philadelphia, 1803. Reprint. South Hackensack, N.J.: Rothman Reprints, 1969.