Dear Starchild and All Others;
A brief history of patents. Please note the following: a patent is not a right to use but a right to exclude the use thereof therefrom.
Ron Getty - SF Libertarian
Hostis res Publica
Morte ai Tiranni
Dum Spiro, Pugno
A patent is not a right to practice or use the invention.[4] Rather, a patent provides the right to exclude others[4] from making, using, selling, offering for sale, or importing the patented invention for the term of the patent, which is usually 20 years from the filing date[3] subject to the payment of maintenance fees. A patent is, in effect, a limited property right that the government offers to inventors in exchange for their agreement to share the details of their inventions with the public. Like any other property right, it may be sold, licensed, mortgaged, assigned or transferred, given away, or simply abandoned.
A patent being an exclusionary right does not, however, necessarily give the owner of the patent the right to exploit the patent.[4] For example, many inventions are improvements of prior inventions which may still be covered by someone else's patent.[4] If an inventor takes an existing, patented mouse trap design, adds a new feature to make an improved mouse trap, and obtains a patent on the improvement, he or she can only legally build his or her improved mouse trap with permission from the patent holder of the original mouse trap, assuming the original patent is still in force. On the other hand, the owner of the improved mouse trap can exclude the original patent owner from using the improvement.
ANCIENT PATENT HISTORY
In 500 BC, in the Greek city of Sybaris (located in what is now southern Italy), "encouragement was held out to all who should discover any new refinement in luxury, the profits arising from which were secured to the inventor by patent for the space of a year." [22]
NOTE THE GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION
The Florentine architect Filippo Brunelleschi received a three year patent for a barge with hoisting gear, that carried marble along the Arno River in 1421.[23]
NOTE THE GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION
Patents in the modern sense originated in 1474, when the Republic of Venice enacted a decree by which new and inventive devices, once they had been put into practice, had to be communicated to the Republic in order to obtain the right to prevent others from using them.[24]
NOTE THE GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION
England followed with the Statute of Monopolies in 1623 under King James I, which declared that patents could only be granted for "projects of new invention." During the reign of Queen Anne (1702–1714), the lawyers of the English Court developed the requirement that a written description of the invention must be submitted.[25] The patent system in many other countries, including Australia, is based on British law and can be traced back to the Statute of Monopolies.[citation needed]
NOTE THE GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION
In the United States, during the so-called colonial period and Articles of Confederation years (1778–1789), several states adopted patent systems of their own. The first Congress adopted a Patent Act, in 1790, and the first patent was issued under this Act on July 31, 1790 (to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont for a potash production technique).
NOTE THE GOVERNMENT INTERVENTION