Page:Joseph Story, Commentaries on the Constitution of the United States (1st ed, 1833, vol III).djvu/56

 48

§ 1146. next power of congress is, "to promote the progress of science and the useful arts, by securing, for limited times, to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries."

§ 1147. This power did not exist under the confederation; and its utility does not seem to have been questioned. The copyright of authors in their works had, before the revolution, been decided in Great Britain to be a common law right; and it was regulated and limited under statutes passed by parliament upon that subject. The right to useful inventions seems, with equal reason, to belong to the inventors; and, accordingly, it was saved out of the statute of monopolies in the reign of King James the First, and has ever since been allowed for a limited period, not exceeding fourteen years. It was doubtless to this knowledge of the common law and statutable rights of authors and inventors, that Ave are to attribute this constitutional provision. It was beneficial to all parties, that the national government should possess this power; to authors and inventors, because, otherwise, they would have been subjected to the varying laws and systems of the different states on this subject, which would