Representative who introduced the bill noted that its principles were “an imitation of the
Patent System of Great Britain.” 3 Annals of Congress 855 (1793).
Later, Justice Story, writing for the Supreme Court, recognized the profound
influence of the English practice on these early patent laws, which in many respects
codified the common law:
It is obvious to the careful inquirer, that many of the provisions of our
patent act are derived from the principles and practice which have
prevailed in the construction of that of England. . . . The language of [the
patent clause of the Statute of Monopolies] is not, as we shall presently
see, identical with ours; but the construction of it adopted by the English
courts, and the principles and practice which have long regulated the
grants of their patents, as they must have been known and are tacitly
referred to in some of the provisions of our own statute, afford materials to
illustrate it.
Pennock v. Dialogue, 27 U.S. 1, 18 (1829) (emphases added); see also Graham v.
John Deere Co., 383 U.S. 1, 5 (1966) (noting that first patent statute was written against
the “backdrop” of English monopoly practices); Sears, Roebuck & Co. v. Stiffel Co., 376
U.S. 225, 230 n.6 (1964) (“Much American patent law derives from English patent
law.”).
While Congress departed from the English practice in certain limited respects, in
many respects Congress simply adopted the English practice without change. Both the
1790 and the 1793 Acts, for example, adopted the same 14-year patent term as in
7
Even the opposing view—urging departure from the English practice in
particular respects—recognized that the English practice provided considerable
guidance. See 3 Annals of Congress at 855-56 (“[Great Britain] had afforded, it was
true, much experience on the subject; but regulations adopted there would not exactly
comport in all respects either with the situation of this country, or with the rights of the
citizen here. The minds of some members had taken a wrong direction, he conceived,
from the view in which they had taken up the subject under its analogy with the doctrine
of patents in England.”); see also To Promote the Progress, supra n.4 at 216-17.
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