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The information on Groklaw is not intended to constitute legal advice. While Mark is a lawyer and he has asked other lawyers and law students to contribute articles, all of these articles are offered to help educate, not to provide specific legal advice. They are not your lawyers.

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It would be entirely Constitutional | 226 comments | Create New Account

Comments belong to whoever posts them. Please notify us of inappropriate comments.

It would be entirely Constitutional

Authored by: jjs on Tuesday, October 30 2012 @ 11:53 AM EDT

No, it is NOT enshrined in the Constitution. The
Constitution allows, but does not require, restrictions.

Article I, Section 8, Clause 8: "The Congress shall 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;"

"Shall have the Power To" does NOT mean "SHALL" it means
"IS
ALLOWED TO." And that is restricted to "promote the
Progress of Science and useful Arts," limited by time, and
does not specifically state what means is used (ie. patents,
copyrights, etc).

Until Congress passed the 1st Patent Act (admittedly early
on), no Patents existed in the US. Even then, the subject
matter was very limited.

Ultimately Congress could (modulo the issues with
international treaties) eliminate patent or copyright and
still be within the Constitution.

---
(Note IANAL, I don't play one on TV, etc, consult a practicing attorney, etc,
etc)

[ Reply to This | Parent | # ]

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