6450. PATENTS, Duration of.—
Certainly
an inventor ought to be allowed a right to
the benefit of his invention for some certain
time. It is equally certain it ought not to be
perpetual; for to embarrass society with monopolies
for every utensil existing, and in all the
details of life, would be more injurious to them
than had the supposed inventors never existed;
because the natural understanding of its members
would have suggested the same things or
others as good. How long the term should be,
is the difficult question. Our legislators have
copied the English estimate of the term, perhaps
without sufficiently considering how much
longer, in a country so much more sparsely settled,
it takes for an invention to become known,
and used to an extent profitable to the inventor.
Nobody wishes more than I do that ingenuity
should receive a liberal encouragement.—
To Oliver Evans. Washington ed. v, 75.
(M.
1807)
