Appreciating Intellectual Property Rights on Constitution Day
by
Randolph J. May and Seth L. Cooper
September 17, 2015
This fall, Congress is considering legislation to reform our copyright and patent laws. Indeed, the House of Representatives' Judiciary Committee is embarking on what it calls a "listening tour" to gather the views of copyright stakeholders. The "listening tour" is all well and good.
But as members of Congress consider how to best secure intellectual property rights in the digital age, they should "listen" - or at least make sure they are familiar with - what the Founders had to say about intellectual property rights. Indeed, Constitution Day - Sept. 17 - provides an opportune moment for recalling the Founders' understanding of natural rights that impelled them to authorize Congress to secure copyrights and patent rights.
Digital production and distribution technologies present new opportunities for entrepreneurship and economic growth. But these advances also pose challenges to protecting intellectual property rights. Online theft of intellectual property costs the American economy $300 billion or more each year. And the very notion of intellectual property rights is under attack from some quarters, even those who otherwise consider themselves constitutionalists.
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The first Congress took up the Constitution's charge to protect intellectual property rights, passing the Copyright and Patent Acts of 1790, which President George Washington signed into law. Both laws were supported by Madison, the leader of House of Representatives. Indeed, many members of the first Congress served at the Constitutional Convention or at state ratifying conventions. Thus, the first Congress is often called the "Constitutional Congress." Inclusion of copyrights and patent rights protections in the Constitutional Congress's historic legislative agenda reinforces the Founders' regard for intellectual property.
If outright theft of intellectual property and ideological downgrading of copyrights and patent rights have one thing in common, it is unwarranted dismissal of fundamental rights. The Founders considered copyright and patent right protections important enough to put into the Constitution. Remembering the work of the Philadelphia Convention on Constitution Day should prompt Congress, in considering copyright and patent law revisions, faithfully to carry out its constitutional duty to secure the intellectual property rights of authors and inventors.
Appreciating Intellectual Property Rights on Constitution Day was published in
The Hill on September 17, 2015.
The Constitutional Foundations of Intellectual Property - A Natural Rights Perspective is available from Amazon
here or from Carolina Academic Press
here.
