Document ID: ./input/supremecourt_opinions/opinions/17pdf/16-712_87ad.pdf
Page Number: 26

Cite as:  584 U. S. ____ (2018) 

5 

GORSUCH, J., dissenting 

even considered doing so was in 1753, in Baker v. James, 
PC2/103,  pp. 320–321.    After  Baker  v.  James,  the  Privy 
Council  “divest[ed]  itself  of  its  functions”  in  ordinary 
patent disputes, Hulme, Privy Council Law and Practice of 
Letters Patent for Invention from the Restoration to 1794 
(Pt.  II),  33  L.  Q.  Rev.  180,  194  (1917),  which  “thereafter 
[were] adjudicated solely by the law courts, as opposed to 
the  [crown’s]  prerogative  courts,”  Mossoff,  Rethinking  the 
Development  of  Patents:  An  Intellectual  History,  1550–
1800,  52  Hastings  L. J.  1255,  1286–1287  (2001)  (Mossoff, 
Rethinking Patents).2 
  This  shift  to  courts  paralleled  a  shift  in  thinking.    Pa-
tents began as little more than feudal favors.  Id., at 1261.  
The crown both issued and revoked them.  Lemley, Juries 
1680–1681.  And they often permitted the lucky recipient 
the exclusive right to do very ordinary things, like operate 
a toll bridge or run a tavern.  Ibid.  But by the 18th century, 
inventors  were  busy  in  Britain  and  invention  patents 
came  to  be  seen  in  a  different  light.    They  came  to  be 
viewed  not  as  endowing  accidental  and  anticompetitive 
monopolies  on  the  fortunate  few  but  as  a  procompetitive 
means to secure to individuals the fruits of their labor and 
ingenuity; encourage others to emulate them; and promote 

—————— 

(Nov.  6,  2017) 

2 See also Brief for H. Tomás Gómez-Arostegui et al. as Amici Curiae 
6–37;  Brief 
for  Alliacense  Limited  LLC  as  Amicus  Curiae 
10–11;  Gómez-Arostegui  &  Bottomley,  Privy  Council  and  Scire  Facias 
1700–1883,  p. 2 
(Addendum),  https://ssrn.com/ 
abstract=3054989 (all Internet materials as last visited Apr. 20, 2018); 
Observations on the Utility of Patents, and on the Sentiments of Lord 
Kenyon  Respecting  That  Subject  23  (2d  ed.  1791)  (“If  persons  of  the 
same  trade  find  themselves  aggrieved  by  Patents  taken  for  any  thing 
already in use, their remedy is at hand.  It is by a writ of Scire Facias”); 
Mancius  v.  Lawton,  10  Johns.  23,  24  (NY  Sup.  Ct.  1813)  (Kent,  C. J.) 
(noting  the  “settled  English  course”  that  “[l]etters-patent  . . .  can  only 
be avoided in chancery, by a writ of scire facias sued out on the part of 
the  government,  or  by  some  individual  prosecuting  in  its  name”  (em-
phasis deleted)).