Line | Because the framers of the United States |
Constitution (written in 1787) believed that protecting | |
property rights relating to inventions would encourage | |
the new nations economic growth, they gave | |
(5) | Congress—the national legislature—a constitutional |
mandate to grant patents for inventions. The resulting | |
patent system has served as a model for those in | |
other nations. Recently, however, scholars have | |
questioned whether the American system helped | |
(10) | achieve the framers goals. These scholars have |
contended that from 1794 to roughly 1830, American | |
inventors were unable to enforce property rights | |
because judges were antipatent and routinely | |
invalidated patents for arbitrary reasons. This | |
(15) | argument is based partly on examination of court |
decisions in cases where patent holders (patentees) | |
brought suit alleging infringement of their patent | |
rights. In the 1820s, for instance, 75 percent | |
of verdicts were decided against the patentee. | |
(20) | The proportion of verdicts for the patentee began to |
increase in the 1830s, suggesting to these scholars | |
that judicial attitudes toward patent rights began | |
shifting then. | |
Not all patent disputes in the early nineteenth | |
(25) | century were litigated, however, and litigated |
cases were not drawn randomly from the | |
population of disputes. Therefore the rate of | |
verdicts in favor of patentees cannot be used | |
by itself to gauge changes in judicial attitudes | |
(30) | or enforceability of patent rights. If early judicial |
decisions were prejudiced against patentees, one | |
might expect that subsequent courts—allegedly | |
more supportive of patent rights—would reject | |
the former legal precedents. But pre-1830 | |
(35) | cases have been cited as frequently as later |
decisions, and they continue to be cited today, | |
suggesting that the early decisions, many of | |
which clearly declared that patent rights were | |
a just recompense for inventive ingenuity, | |
(40) | provided a lasting foundation for patent law. |
The proportion of judicial decisions in favor of | |
patentees began to increase during the 1830s | |
because of a change in the underlying population | |
of cases brought to trial. This change was partly | |
(45) | due to an 1836 revision to the patent system: |
an examination procedure, still in use today, was | |
instituted in which each application is scrutinized | |
for its adherence to patent law. Previously, | |
patents were automatically granted upon payment | |
(50) | of a $30 fee. |
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