Book Description

Excerpt from Patents, Copyrights, and Trade Marks The Patent Laws of the United States are founded on Art. 1, 8 of the Constitution, which says: 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 respec tive writings and discoveries. In accordance with this delegation of power, Congress has enacted laws giving to authors and inventors the exclusive control of their writings and discoveries. This exclusive control is not given to them because an inventor has any moral right to prevent others from enjoying the fruits of his new ideas, but because it was recognized that, by giving him the exclusive control of his invention for a short period, the arts would be encouraged, the public would obtain the right to enjoy the invention after that period, and the prosperity of the country would be increased thereby. That these results have been accomplished is evident. Morse would probably not have struggled to produce the telegraph, nor Eli Whitney to produce the cotton gin, Goodyear would not have gone through years of abject poverty in order to accomplish the successful vulcanization of rubber, Edison would probably not have given to the world the incandescent electric light, nor Bell the tele phone, without the hope of a reward, - and these are only a few of the many inventions which have been the result of years of experiment and which have made this country the manufacturing center of the world. This reward is not, however, given to the inventor for his mere production of the new thing. The Govern ment enters into a contract with him, and gives him a patent in consideration of his disclosing the invention inhis patent in such full, clear, concise, and exact terms as to enable any person skilled in the art or science to which it appertains or with which it is most nearly connected, to make, construct, compound and use the same, to the end that the public may be able, at the expiration of the limited time, to reproduce and enjoy the invention. If the patent does not so disclose it, the patent is void. About the Publisher Forgotten Books publishes hundreds of thousands of rare and classic books. Find more at www.forgottenbooks.com This book is a reproduction of an important historical work. Forgotten Books uses state-of-the-art technology to digitally reconstruct the work, preserving the original format whilst repairing imperfections present in the aged copy. In rare cases, an imperfection in the original, such as a blemish or missing page, may be replicated in our edition. We do, however, repair the vast majority of imperfections successfully; any imperfections that remain are intentionally left to preserve the state of such historical works.