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"The American Constitution does not attempt to give an inventor a right to his invention, or an author a right to his composition; it recognizes an original, pre-existing, inherent right of property in such invention or composition, and authorizes Congress to secure to the inventor or author the enjoyment of that right, but the right exists before the Constitution and above the Constitution, and is, as a natural right, more than that which a man can assert in almost any other kind of property."

"The patent system of the United States is, in many respects, radically different from that of any other country. Inferentially, at least, the purpose of the Constitution appears to have been to recognize property in a new invention as a right belonging to the inventor, not a favor conferred by Government. This is their language: 'The Congress shall have power to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.'"

"The productions of my mind are, confessedly, as really property or the subject of property as the fabrics of my hands. Indeed, they are far more exclusively my own. The patent is a contract by which I convey my invention to the Commonwealth forever, in consideration of the exclusive enjoyment of it by myself during a limited period."

"The title to intellectual property rests upon an even higher level of right than can be assigned to any mere material possession. Indeed, the arguments for the rights of inventors may go further than this; for it may reasonably be urged that, owing to the custom of limiting such property to a brief term of years, there should be a special exemption of it from burdens which may fairly be borne by possessions held in perpetuity. But half of a generation -- scarce one-forth of the reasonable expectation of human life -- is possession given to the creator of property, which is the only absolute contribution to the store of human goods. Surely this should be an argument against making it bear the burden of special disabilities such as our thoughtless marplots of society would put upon it."

"The discoveries of physical science are a part of the nation's strength and glory. The inventions of mechanical skill are, or ought to be, the poor man's honor and blessing."

"But I put this: Is it reasonable to make a man feel as if, in inventing an improvement meant to do good, he had done something wrong?"

"As a new invented art, nobody can be said to have a right to that which was not in being before; and therefore it (the patent) is a reasonable reward to ingenuity and uncommon industry."

"The reason wherefore such a privilege is good in law is because the inventor bringeth to and for the Commonwealth a new manufacture by his invention, costs and charges, and therefore it is reason that he should have a privilege for his reward and the encouragement of others in the like, for a reasonable time."

"The whole community is benefited by the promotion of the useful arts, and therefore it is for the public good to hold out the promise of rewards to inventors of new and useful arts and manufactures who may first put the public in possession of them. In some cases, where meritorious inventors could not be otherwise adequately rewarded, sums of money have been granted to them out of the public purse; but such a mode of recompense, it is clear, could not be generally adopted.

"It is true that, by such a grant, every other person is restrained, during the continuance of the monopoly, from using the patented invention, even if he makes a similar discovery himself. But, at the time the grant is made, it is by no means certain that the invention will be given to the public, or even made by any other person, and, by the temporary suspension of their right, the people acquire the certainty of being able to use the invention at the expiration of the monopoly. The reward which the inventor thus obtains will, in general, be in proportion to the benefit which he confers upon the public."

"The expediency of granting patents has been disputed -- though, as it would seem, without sufficient reason. Were they refused, the inducement to make discoveries would, in many cases, be very much weakened; at the same time it would plainly be for the interest of every one who made a discovery to endeavor, if possible, to conceal it; and, notwithstanding the difficulties in the way of concealment, they are not insuperable, and it is believed that various important inventions have been lost from the secret dying with their authors."

"There appears to be no better way of measuring out appropriate rewards for useful inventions than, by a general law, to secure to all descriptions of persons, without discrimination, the exclusive use and sale, for a given period, of the thing invented. In this way they will generally derive a just and appropriate encouragement proportioned to the value of their respective inventions. It is not, at this day, to be doubted that the evil of temporary monopoly is greatly overbalanced by the good the community ultimately derives from its toleration." (Report of Senator Ruggles introducing the draft of the organic act of July, 1836.)

"We (the Swiss) must introduce the patent system. All our production is, more or less, a simple copy. The inventor has no profit to expect from his invention, no matter how useful it may be. ... The want of protection is a disadvantage to us. The State ought not to hesitate to add to its resources this new resource; but, at the same time, we must remember that an invention is valuable in proportion to the faculty with which it can be made available; and so it is essential that the grant of patents be accessible to inventors of the most moderate fortunes."

"I beg to call attention to the portion of the Times' article referring to the United States, in which it is distinctly admitted that American manufactures of tools, locomotive engines, and many other kinds of hardware, are now obtained, in Canada and Australia, almost exclusively from the United States; while it is also stated that that country not only produces at home all the manufactured goods she at one time bought from England, but that she has been able to exclude British goods from foreign markets."

"It is the reaper that has made it possible for a thin population to deal with such an enormous acreage of grain. Step by step the reaper has been improved, until now it cuts the grain, binds it into sheaves with wire or string, and casts it aside ready for the cart, and all with the help of but a single man to drive, doing the work of four men on the old machines. The reapers that bind with wire are justly criticized by miller for leaving scraps of iron wire in the grain, which, when it passes through the stones, damages both the flour and the mill. A new reaper, binding with strips or strings of vegetable make, has proved successful this summer, and will probably supersede all others. It is possible to manage farms of hundreds and thousands of acres of wheat only by improved machines. With a sparse population, and only the cradle, and, still less, the sickle, there could be no possibility of securing the grain of these vast grain-fields before it perished. But now the forehanded farmer has a plow rigged with a regular seat, and rides as if in a chariot; then comes the seed-drill, with its cushioned seat; and at length the reaper clears the field, with the farmer riding on it, like a gentleman that he is. Fifty years ago there was more backache in handling one acre of wheat than today there is in fifty acres."

"It is not in great cities nor in the confined shops of trade, but principally in agriculture, that the best stock or staple of men is grown. It is in the open air, that in communion with the sky, the earth, and all living things, the largest inspiration is drank in, and the vital energies of a real man conserved. The modern improvements in machinery have facilitated production to such a degree that when they become diffused through the world only a few hands, comparatively, will be requisite in the mechanic arts; and those engaged in agriculture, being proportionately more numerous, will be more in a condition of ease. Here opens a new and sublime hope. If a State can maintain the practice of a pure morality, and can unite with agriculture a taste for learning and science and the generous exercises I have named, a race of men will ultimately be raised up having a physical volume, a native majesty and force of mind such as no age has yet produced."

"A patent gave the inventor the right of working individually, in derogation of the chartered monopoly of the guild. Patents are even now granted in Austria admittedly for the same object. Thus the dawn of the right of inventors has been actually coeval with the destruction of monopolies odious to the common justice of men; and the common sense of mankind has marked a distinction between such monopolies and the exclusive rights conceded to inventors. Their rights, under patents, are called "monopolies" only from the poverty of language, which has failed to express in words a distinction which no less clearly exists."

"Invention is the only power on earth that can be said to create. It enters as an essential element into the process of the increase of national wealth, because that process is a creation and not (like that of individual or corporate wealth) a mere acquisition. It does not necessarily enter into the process of the increase of individual wealth, because that may be simply an acquisition, not a creation. Hence, the most frequent cause of the increase of national wealth is the increase of the skill, dexterity and judgment of the mechanical contrivances with which national labor is applied."

"For the present, the status of intellectual property is so insecure that great concessions have to be made by the owners of such property to popular barbarism.

"The gross injustice done to inventors, as in Whitney's case, is to be charged to an undeveloped moral sense on the part of the community, and not to any radical defect in the patent system. Even material property is not yet entirely secure against invasion amongst us."

"The condemnation of monopolies (says Mill) ought not to extend to patents, by which the originator of a new process is permitted to enjoy, for a limited period, the exclusive privilege of using his own improvement. This is not making the commodity dearer for his benefit, but merely postponing a part of the increased cheapness (or excellence) which the public owe to the inventor, in order to compensate and reward him for his service. That he ought to be both compensated and rewarded for it will not be denied; and also, that if all were at once allowed to avail themselves of his ingenuity, without having shared the labors or the expenses which he had to incur in bringing his idea into a practical shape, either such expenses would be undergone by nobody, except by very opulent and very public spirited persons, or the State must put a value on the service rendered by the inventor and make him a public grant. This has been done in some instances (as when Parliament offered a reward of £20,000 for a method of finding a ship's longitude at sea), and may be done without inconvenience in cases of very conspicuous public benefit; but, in general, an exclusive privilege, of temporary duration, is preferable, because it leaves nothing to any one's discretion; because the reward conferred by it depends upon the invention being found useful, and the greater the usefulness the greater the reward; and because it is paid by the very persons to whom the services are rendered, the consumers of the commodity."

"To enumerate its present effects would be to count almost every comfort and every luxury of life. It has increased the sum of human happiness, not only by calling new pleasures into existence, but by so cheapening former enjoyments as to render them attainable by those who before could never have hoped to share them. The surface of the land and the face of the waters are traversed with equal facility by its power; and by thus stimulating and facilitating the intercourse of nation with nation, and the commerce of people with people, it has knit together remote countries by bonds of amity not likely to be broken. Streams of knowledge and information are kept flowing between distant centers of population, those more advanced diffusing civilization and improvement among those that are more backward. The press itself, to which mankind owes, in so large a degree, the rapidity of its improvement in modern times, has had its power and influence increased in a manifold ratio by its union with the steam engine. It is thus that literature is cheapened, and, by being cheapened, diffused; it is thus that reason has taken the place of force and the pen has superseded the sword; it is thus that war has almost ceased upon the earth, and that the differences which inevitably arise between people and people are for the most part adjusted by peaceful negotiation."

"We don't like to be irreverent, but would like to ask, what did our forefathers know? What, for instance did George Washington know? He never saw a steamboat; he never saw a fast mail-train; he never held his ear to a telephone; he never sat for his picture in a photograph gallery; he never received a telegraph dispatch; he never sighted a Krupp gun; he never listened to the 'fizz' of an electric pen; he never saw a self-propelling engine go down the street to a fire; he never heard of "evolution"; he never took laughing gas; he never had a set of store-teeth; he never attended an international exposition; he never owned a bonanza mine; he never knew 'Old Prob.' He -- but why go on? No; when he took an excursion it was on a flat boat. When he went off on a train it was a mule-train. When he wanted to talk to a man in Milwaukee he had to -- go there. When he wanted his picture taken it was done in profile with a piece of black paper and a pair of shears. When he got the returns from the back counties they had to be brought in by a man with an ox-cart. When he took aim at the enemy he had to trust to a crooked barreled old flint lock. When he wrote it was with a goose-quill. When he had anything to mend, his grandmother did it with a darning needle. When he went to a fire he stood in a line and passed buckets. When he looked at a clam he never dreamed that it was any relation of his! When he went to a concert he heard a cracked fiddle and an insane clarionet. When he had a tooth pulled he sat down and never stopped yelling. When he got out of teeth he mummed [sic, gummed?] his victuals." ....

"There has been a conspicuous progress from the fifteenth century, when even an ordinary gentleman's house was commonly without wainscot or plaster on its walls, down to the present century, when every cottage has more rooms than one and the artisans' usually have several, while all have fire-places, chimneys, and glazed windows accompanied mostly by paper hangings and painted doors. This progress has been still more marked within our own time. Any one who can look back sixty years, when the amount of pauperism was far greater than now were, and beggars abundant, is struck by the comparative size and finish of the new houses occupied by operatives -- by the better dress of workmen, who wear broadcloth on Sundays, and that of servant girls, who vie with their mistresses -- by the higher standard of living which leads to a great demand for the best qualities of food by working people; all results of the double change to higher wages and cheaper commodities. The lowering of the death rate, again, proves that the average life is less trying. -- (From Freedom to Bondage, by Herbert Spencer, Pop. Sci. Monthly, April, 1891.)

"On all the hearthstones of the civilized world for thousands of years the kettle had boiled and lifted its lid by the expansive force of steam, yet to none had this seemingly trite and ever recurring incident been significant, to none had it announced that measureless power of which it was the humble, but distinct exponent. At length, the movement caught the eye of a lonely student of nature, then a prisoner in the Tower of London, and, in the soil of his prolific mind, it proved the rapidly expanding germ of that steam engine whose triumphs have changed the social, political and commercial aspects of the globe.(Com'r Holt in x.p. Goodyear 14 June 1858, vol. 3, ms. 421)

"From the very foundation of this Government, it has been its settled policy to secure a just reward to all inventors, and it is to the inflexible maintenance of this policy that we are indebted for the unparalled advancement which, as a people, we have made in the useful arts. All that is glorious in our past or hopeful in our future is indissolubly linked with the course of human progress of which inventors are the preux chevaliers. It is no poetic exaggeration of the abiding sentiment of the country to say that they are the true jewels of the nation to which they belong, and that a solicitude for the protection of their rights and interests should find a place in every throb of the national heart. Sadly helpless as a class, and offering in the glittering creations of their own genius the strongest temptation to unscrupulous cupidity, they, of all men, have most need of the shelter of the public law, while, in view of their philanthropic labors, they are of all men most entitled to claim it."

(Ibid, 425)