We’d like to take a minute to appreciate an article written in the Washington Examiner about the history of IP protections. IP protection may seem like a very modern concept, but it really due to the Internet that it came to the forefront of public knowledge. The internet has made it incredibly easy to share information, but that information could also be illegally shared as in the case of online piracy.
But IP protections are actually embedded in the Constitution in Article 1, Section 8, Clause 8. In fact, it’s call the Intellectual Property Clause. It grants Congress the 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.”
The article has an interesting expose on President Lincoln’s stance on IP protection. He was a lawyer before he was president and had worked on at least five patent cases prior to the presidency. He also held several patents himself. As president, he extolled the Intellectual Property Clause and discussed how it helped with many agricultural and printing improvements in his time. He believed that “each individual is naturally entitled to do as he pleases with himself and the fruit of his labor.”
There are those who would love to freely profit off of another person’s work without compensating the creator of the work. This is what IP laws are supposed to prevent, but the internet has made this much more difficult. That’s why Greenberg & Lieberman, LLC, have specialized in the field of internet IP protection. For more information, contact our offices or browse our website.
