Intellectual Property

industrial discovery ferment ideas

"Every industrial discovery is the product of the general ferment of ideas. Each discovery is the result of internal work that was accomplished with the support of a large number of successive or simultaneous collaborators in society, over centuries. Industrial discovery is far from offering the same degree of individuality as compared to most other productions of the mind which require a relationship to the author. This is why it is hard to claim being the originator."

— Michel Chevalier (1806-1879)

patent harmful society

"The institution of patents has resulted in an interloper industry that renders no service, and that on the contrary is harmful to society because it lives from usurpations and abuses. The provisions of our legislation that allow and even require seizure and confiscation are in the hands of who wants them sometimes formidable weapons against the true inventors, sometimes against manufacturers or retailers. These smugglers are lurking like the hunter on the prowl. Once an interesting invention occurs, they vigorously strive to ensure its benefits and operation by a patent hastily put together, before the inventor is aware. If they have been outpaced and the patent has been granted, they do not consider themselves as beaten; by additions that the practice would be indicated to the least distinguished engineer, or by artfully drafted changes, they allow themselves to get a patent, to interpose as birds of prey between the patentee and the public, and to require tributes on both sides."

— Michel Chevalier (1806-1879)

inventor owner explorer property right priority

"It is not true that the inventor is, in the ordinary meaning of the term, the owner of the industrial process he discovers; he is only the first explorer. The right to acquire it is not a property right, it is a priority right, nothing more; and this right has its natural limit in the corresponding right of all other industrial competitors, to walk in turn on the path he has committed the first."

— Charles Coquelin (1802-1852)

nature exclusive property idea possession

"If nature has made any one thing less susceptible than all others of exclusive property, it is the action of the thinking power called an idea, which an individual may exclusively possess as long as he keeps it to himself; but the moment it is divulged, it forces itself into the possession of every one, and the receiver cannot dispossess himself of it. Its peculiar character, too, is that no one possesses the less, because every other possesses the whole of it. He who receives an idea from me, receives instruction himself without lessening mine; as he who lights his taper at mine, receives light without darkening me."

— Thomas Jefferson (1743.1826)

property right discernible border scarce resources

"Thus, property rights must have objective, discernible borders, and must be allocated in accordance with the first occupier homesteading rule. Moreover, property rights can apply only to scarce resources. The problem with IP rights is that the ideal objects protected by IP rights are not scarce; and, further, that such property rights are not, and cannot be, allocated in accordance with the first occupier homesteading rule."

— Stephan Kinsella