Intellectual Property
Source: Statute of Anne, 1710; US Constitution Art. I, Sec. 8, Cl. 8; TRIPS Agreement, 1994
Finding
Patents (20 years), copyright (life plus 50-70 years), trademarks (indefinite with use). The Statute of Anne (1710) established authors’ rather than publishers’ rights. The US Constitution specifies both purpose (“promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts”) and limit (“for limited Times”). The Sonny Bono Act (1998) extended copyright to life plus 70 years; upheld in Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003).
Pattern Mapping
Alignment — IP aligns creative effort with reward. When it becomes a monopoly tool — patent trolls, perpetual copyright extensions — the alignment between stated purpose (promote progress) and actual effect (suppress competition) breaks.
Humility — “For limited times” encodes humility. The creator’s exclusive right has a defined scope; the Sonny Bono Act pushes against this structural limit.
Proportion — A 20-year patent on a billion-dollar pharmaceutical may be proportional. The same duration on a weekend software feature may not. IP law handles this proportion question poorly.
Connections
- The Printing Press — IP emerged because the press made copying easy (→ CIVILIZATION)
- Open Source — the deliberate relinquishment of IP rights for structural reasons (→ CONSTRUCTION)
- Shannon Information Theory — information wants to propagate; IP constrains propagation (→ CIVILIZATION)
- Adam Smith Invisible Hand — IP is the exception to free markets: a government-granted monopoly (→ ECONOMY)
- Invention of Writing — writing created the problem IP tries to solve (→ CIVILIZATION)
Status
Established legal field. See Sherman and Bently, The Making of Modern Intellectual Property Law (1999); Boldrin and Levine, Against Intellectual Monopoly (2008).
The mapping to the five properties is this project’s structural interpretation.