came to be used increasingly for revenue purposes, and as a means for bestowing personal favors. Under the common law, the courts made an important distinction concerning the enforceability of patents granted by the crown. The patents, conferred on the inventors of a new manufacture or the introducers of a new trade or craft into the realm, were sustained by the courts as a legitimate exercise of royal power to develop trade and commerce. On the other hand, patents granted to restrict some wellknown branch of industry or commerce to particular individuals or corporations as a return for service or pecuniary aid were treated by the courts as void. However, since no power existed by which the king could be prevented from issuing unlawful patents, they remained common up to the enactment of the Statute of Monopolies (1624) in the reign of James I. 6/ While the first patent law, in the sense of a law making a general promise of exclusive rights to inventors, was enacted in 1474 by the Republic of Venice,7/ England's Statute of Monopolies was the most significant because it specifically sanctioned patents for invent ions in an Act which sought to declare monopolies void. The Statute of Monopolies was declaratory of the common law and specifically permitted 7/ Its Economic and Social Basis, (1960). Mandich, Venetian Origins of Inventors' Rights; 42 J.P.O.S. 378 (1948); Gilfillan, S. C., Invention and the Patent System, prepared for the Joint Economic Committee, 88th Cong., 2d Sess., at 11 (1964). the granting of monopolies, for limited times, for the "sole working or making of any manner of new manufacture within this realm to the 1,8/ true and first inventor or inventors of such manufactures.... 9/ In early America several of the colonies granted patents for new inventions as well as new industries based on known technology. These patents were valid only within the territorial limits of the issuing colony. The framers of the Constitution were well aware of the English patent tradition and the Constitution reflects this basic support for a patent system by our Founding Fathers in providing that:10/ The Congress shall have power...To promote progress of Under this power, Congress passed the first United States patent law in 1790,11/ which contained all of the essential provisions of our patent system today except for the patent examination procedure which 12/ was introduced in 1836. 9/ See, for example, Victor S. Clark, History of Manufacturers in the United States, Vol. I, 1607-1860 (1929). Goldstein v. California, 412 U.S. 546, 557 (1973). The Constitution and the statutes of the United States preserve the contrast between the exclusive rights conferred by a patent and those enjoyed by a true monopolist, particularly in their relation 13/ to the public. A patent to an inventor takes nothing from the public which either the public or the inventor's competitors had or was obvious 14/ on the basis of then-existing knowledge. The term "monopoly" connotes The patent grant is created by statute which defines the limits. 16/ of the rights conferred by the grant. Thus, upon fully disclosing the invention and meeting other requirements of patentability, the inventor 14/ 15/ 16/ United States v. American Bell Telephone Company, 167 U.S. 224, 239 (1897). United States v. Dubilier Condenser Corporation, 289 U.S. 178, 186 (1933). 35 U.S.C. §154 provides that "Every patent shall contain...a grant... for the term of seventeen years...of the right to exclude others from making, using, or selling the invention throughout the United States." receives an exclusive privilege for a period of seventeen years. It should be noted that a patent is not the grant of a right to make, use or sell the invention. It does not, directly or indirectly, imply any such right. The Government is not granting the common law right to make, use or sell the invention which arises from the fact that the patentee has invented or discovered something useful, but is granting the incident of exclusive ownership of that common law right the right to exclude others from making, using or selling the invention.17/ 18/ A patent has the attributes of personal property. The owner of a patent is both legally and equitably entitled to the same protection for that property that the owner of any other species of property may 19/ enjoy. One important incident of that protection is that the patent owner can assign his rights or any interest therein to the whole or any 20/ specified part of the United States. 17/ Continental Paper Bag Company v. Eastern Paper Bag Company, 210 U.S. 405, 425 (1908). 18/ 19/ 35 U.S.C. $261. McCormick Harvesting Machine Company v. Aultman, 169 US 606, 609 (1898). A patent is a document consisting of the grant and a specification which contains a written description of the invention and the manner and process of making and using it, followed by one or more claims which constitute a concise, formal definition of that which the inventor 22/ regards as his invention. The exclusionary property right granted to the inventor is defined by the claims of the patent which no member of the public may use without trespassing on that exclusive right. The scope of protection is measured and limited to the invention described in the claims, when read in light of the written description of the invention. While there is some latitude in claim interpretation, it is well settled that the claims of a valid patent must define the invention with sufficient particularity that the metes and bounds of the invention can be determined. 23/ The requirement for precision and clarity in the claims is based on the need to inform the public of the limits of the rights asserted. 24/ The wrong committed by one who violates the exclusive right conferred by a patent is termed an infringement. The patent laws recognize and define both (1) direct infringement i.e. the making, 23/ General Electric Company v. Wabash Appliance Corporation, 304 U.S. 364, 369 (1938). 21/ |