🚀 go-pugleaf

In article <PCG.91Aug22184726@aberdb.aber.ac.uk>, pcg@aber.ac.uk (Piercarlo Grandi) writes:
|> Precisely. That's not a problem, at least not a legal problem; legall;y
|> the US Constitution only requires that inventions be rewarded by
|> granting exclusive economic rights to the invention.

Since you live in the UK, you may be excused for this; the US Consititution
makes no such requirement.  For the third time, here is the relevant
passage, from Article I, section 8:

  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 respective
Writings and Discoveries;

Note the following:

1.  Congress is not required to grant exclusive rights (copyrights and
patents); it merely has the power to do so.  It would be within the
power of Congress to abolish patents entirely.

2.  The reason given for patents and copyrights is NOT, as some have argued,
because of some property right or entitlement on the part of the inventor
or author.  It is, rather, to promote the progress of science and useful
arts.  Any patent system that actively hinders the progress of science
and useful arts, therefore, violates at least the spirit of the US Constitution.

--
Joe Buck
jbuck@galileo.berkeley.edu	 {uunet,ucbvax}!galileo.berkeley.edu!jbuck