Quotations


Before then [the adoption of the United States Constitution], any
man might instantly use what another had invented; so that the
inventor had no special advantage from his own invention. The
patent system changed this; secured to the inventor, for a limited
time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the
fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and
production of new and useful things.
Abraham Lincoln, Second lecture on discoveries and inventions,
February 11, 1859

Everything that can be invented has been invented.
Charles H. Duell, Commissioner, U.S. patent office, 1899 (attributed)

A country without a patent office and good patent laws is just a
crab and can't travel any way but sideways and backwards.
Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889)

Patents are the best and most effective means of controlling
competition. They occasionally give absolute command of the
market, enabling their owner to name the price without regard to
the cost of production... Patents are the only legal form of
absolute monopoly.
Edwin J. Prindle, America By Design (1906)

Certainly an inventor ought to be allowed a right to the benefit of
his invention for some certain time. Nobody wishes more than I
do that ingenuity should receive liberal encouragement. In the
arts, and especially in the mechanical arts, many ingenious
improvements are made in consequence of the patent right giving
exclusive use of them for fourteen years.
Thomas Jefferson

He who builds a better mousetrap these days runs into material
shortages, patent-infringement suits, work stoppages, collusive
bidding, discount discrimination--and taxes.
H. E. Martz

I'll tell you the problem with the scientific power that you're using
here: it didn't require any discipline to attain it. You read what
others had done and you took the next step. You didn't earn the
knowledge for yourselves, so you don't take any responsibility for
it. You stood on the shoulders of geniuses to accomplish
something as fast as you could and before you even knew what
you had you patented it and packaged it and slapped it on a
plastic lunchbox, and now you're selling it, you want to sell it.      
Ian Malcolm (Jurassic Park)