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The Wellman-Woodman Patent Controversy in the Cotton Textile Machinery Industry

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  24 July 2012

Thomas R. Navin Jr.
Thomas R. Navin Jr.
Affiliation:
Harvard University
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Extract

When the Constitutional Fathers decided, during that hot summer of 1787, “to promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Time to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries,” they sought to establish a means of rewarding men for the products of their talent and ingenuity. But, in so doing, they also laid the groundwork for many a subsequent lawsuit. Not infrequently the true originator of an idea or device could not be easily determined. Often several inventors, though starting from different points, arrived almost simultaneously at similar discoveries.

Type
Research Article
Information
Business History Review , Volume 21 , Issue 5 , November 1947 , pp. 144 - 152
Copyright
Copyright © The President and Fellows of Harvard College 1947

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References

1 Federal Case 17,385, March, 1856.

2 Meserve, H. C., Lowell—An Industrial Dream Come True (Boston, 1929) p. 125.Google Scholar

3 Pp. 117–122, 131.