THE ORIGINS AND MEANING OF THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CLAUSE Dotan Oliar* ABSTRACT In Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003) the Supreme Court reaffirmed the primacy of historical and textual considerations in delineating Congress’ power and limitations under the Intellectual Property Clause. Nevertheless, the Court overlooked what is perhaps the most important source of information regarding these considerations: The debates in the federal Constitutional Convention that led to the adoption of the Clause. To date, several unsettled questions stood in the way of identifying fully the legislative history behind the Clause. Thus, the Article goes through a combined historical and quantitative fact-finding process that culminates in identifying eight proposals for legislative power from which the Clause originated. Having clarified the legislative history, the Article proceeds to examine the process by which various elements of these proposals were combined to produce the Clause. This process of textual putting together reveals, among other things, that the text “promote the progress of science and useful arts” serves as a limitation on Congress’ power to grant intellectual property rights. The Article offers various implications for intellectual property doctrine and policy. It offers a model to describe the power and limitations set in the Clause. It examines the way in which Courts have enforced the limitations in the Clause. It reveals a common thread of non-deferential review running through Court decisions to date, for which it supplies normative justifications. It thus concludes that courts should examine in future and pending cases whether the Progress Clause’s limitation has been overreached. Since Eldred and other cases have not developed a concept of progress for the Clause yet, the Article explores several ways in which courts could do so. Lastly, the Article doubts the accepted wisdom of parsing the Clause dichotomously into a patent power and a copyright power. * Fellow, Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business, Harvard Law School; Fellow, Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School. I am grateful and indebted to William Fisher for invaluable comments, inspiring conversations, and enduring support. For very valuable discussions and comments I thank Oren Bar-Gill, Michal Barzuza, Doron Ben-Atar, Kiwi Camara, Richard Fallon, Donald Harris, Michael Meurer, Adam Mossoff, John Palfrey, Yuval Procaccia, Sharon Sandeen, Steven Shavell, Peter Yu, and Jonathan Zittrain. I thank participants of Harvard Law School’s Law and Economics seminar and of the Berkman Center’s Fellows Series for their comments. I thank the Olin Center for Law, Economics, and Business at Harvard Law School for its hospitality and financial support. Working draft of 9/15/2004. THE INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY CLAUSE 1 Table of Contents Introduction ..................................................................................................................................... 2 I. Which Sources Attest to the Origins of the Clause? .................................................................... 7 A. Overview of Facts................................................................................................................................. 7 B. Analysis of Pinckney’s Observations and Plan..................................................................................... 8 1. The Observations and Plan on Intellectual Property........................................................................................... 8 2. Literature Assumes Claim .................................................................................................................................. 9 3. Objective Evidence about the Plan................................................................................................................... 12 4. Claim Was Not Made ....................................................................................................................................... 12 C. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 14 II. Did James Madison Propose a Patent Power in the Convention?............................................. 15 A. Two Journals, Three Versions ............................................................................................................ 15 1. Convention Journal’s Record for August 18, 1787........................................................................................... 15 2. Madison Journal’s Record for August 18, 1787 ............................................................................................... 16 B. Questions and Conventional Answers................................................................................................. 17 C. Suggested Answers ............................................................................................................................. 18 1. Overview of Argument..................................................................................................................................... 18 2. Credibility Assessments – Madison’s Journal Preferred Generally.................................................................. 18 3. Madison’s Journal Preferred Regarding August 18, 1787................................................................................ 21 4. Madison Probably Unaware of the Missing Power .......................................................................................... 22 5. Conventional Wisdom Doubted ....................................................................................................................... 24 6. Process to Reconcile Evidence: Presented and Applied ................................................................................... 24 7. Additional Evidence Supporting that Madison Proposed Patent Power ........................................................... 25 D. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 26 III. The Immediate Origins of the Clause...................................................................................... 26 A. The Clause and its Immediate Origins................................................................................................ 26 B. Origins of the Immediate Origins........................................................................................................ 27 1. Assumption of Proposals’ Sufficiency ............................................................................................................. 30 2. Statute of Anne and of Monopolies Probably not Immediate Origins.............................................................. 31 3. Remark in the Convention................................................................................................................................ 32 C. Conclusion .......................................................................................................................................... 33 IV. The Textual Construction of the Clause and the Intent Behind It........................................... 33 A. Means Rejected, Means Adopted........................................................................................................ 34 1. Means Rejected ................................................................................................................................................ 34 2. Means Adopted ................................................................................................................................................ 40 B. Ends Rejected, Ends Adopted............................................................................................................. 42 C. Clause’s Textual Construction: Overview and Context ...................................................................... 45 V. Applications, or Back to the Present ........................................................................................ 47 A. From Original to Current Model of Limitations under the Clause...................................................... 47 B. Progress Clause: Text, Intent, and Statutory Manifestations............................................................... 52 C. Enforcing what the Clause Means....................................................................................................... 55 1. What the Standard of Review Is ....................................................................................................................... 55 2. On Non-Doctrinal Justifications for the Standard............................................................................................. 63 3. Notes to Future Courts Interpreting the Progress Clause.................................................................................. 69 D. Dichotomous Reading of the Clause Doubted.................................................................................... 76 1. Overview of Arguments Supporting a Dichotomous Reading.......................................................................... 78 2. Evidence Tends against a Dichotomous Reading............................................................................................. 81 3. Dichotomous Reading Unappealing Practically ..............................................................................................