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20 

BILSKI v. KAPPOS 

STEVENS, J., concurring in judgment 

Early American Patent Law 

At the Constitutional Convention, the Founders decided 
to give Congress a patent power so that it might “promote
the Progress of . . . useful Arts.”  Art. I, §8, cl. 8.  There is 
little known history of that Clause.22  We do know that the 
Clause passed without objection or debate.23  This is strik-
ing  because  other  proposed  powers,  such  as  a  power  to 
grant  charters  of  incorporation,  generated  discussion 
about  the  fear  that  they  might  breed  “monopolies.”24 
Indeed,  at  the  ratification  conventions,  some  States  rec-
ommended  amendments  that  would  have  prohibited  Con-
gress  from  granting  “ ‘exclusive  advantages  of  com-
merce.’ ” 25    If  the  original  understanding  of  the  Patent 

—————— 

Enterprise:  Merchants  and  Economic  Development  in  Revolutionary 
Philadelphia  291  (1986)  (describing  new  methods  of  conducting  and
financing trade with China). 

22 See Seidel, The Constitution and a Standard of Patentability, 48 J.
Pat.  Off.  Soc.  5,  10  (1966)  (hereinafter  Seidel);  Walterscheid,  To  Pro-
mote  the  Progress  of  Science  and  Useful  Arts:  The  Background  and
Origin of the Intellectual Property Clause of the United States Consti-
tution,  2  J.  Intell.  Prop.  L.  1,  26  (1994)  (hereinafter  Walterscheid, 
Background  and  Origin);  Walterscheid,  To  Promote  the  Progress  59,
and  n. 12;  Prager,  A  History  of  Intellectual  Property  From  1545  to
1787, 26 J. Pat. Off. Soc. 711, 746 (1944). 

23 Walterscheid, Background and Origin 26; 2 Records of the Federal 

Convention of 1787, pp. 509–510 (M. Farrand ed. 1966). 

24 J.  Madison,  Notes  of  Debates  in  the  Federal  Convention  of  1787, 

pp. 638–639 (Ohio Univ. Press ed. 1966). 

25 See Walterscheid, Background and Origin 38, n. 124, 55–56 (collect-
ing sources); see also The Objections of Hon. George Mason, One of the
Delegates  from  Virginia,  in  the  Late  Continental  Convention,  to  the 
Proposed  Federal  Constitution,  Assigned  as  His  Reasons  For  Not 
Signing  the  Same,  2  American  Museum  or  Repository  of  Ancient  and 
Modern Fugitive Pieces, etc. 534, 536 (1787) (reprint 1965); Ratification
of the New Constitution by the Convention of the State of New York, 4 
id.,  at  153,  156  (1789);  Remarks  on  the  Amendments  to  the  Federal 
Constitution  Proposed  by  The  Conventions  of  Massachusetts,  New 
Hampshire,  New  York,  Virginia,  South  and  North  Carolina,  with  the 
Minorities of  Pennsylvania and Maryland by the  Rev. Nicholas Collin,