1. “...ideas should freely spread from one to another over the globe, for the moral and mutual instruction of man,...like the air in which we breath, move, and have our physical being... ” Thomas Jefferson’s statement (1813), in a letter to a Baltimore inventor.
2. “Inventions cannot...be a subject of property. Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from them, as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility.” (ibid.).
3. U.S. Constitution, Art. 1, Sec. 8.
4. The “Paris Convention,” first signed on Mar 20, 1883, revised on Dec 14, 1900 (Brussels); on Jun 2, 1911 (Washington); Nov 6, 1925 (Hague); Jun 2, 1934 (London); Oct 31, 1958 (Lisbon)’; Jul 14, 1967 (Stockholm) and amended in London on Sep 28, 1979.
5. The “Berne Convention,” first signed in 1886; revised in 1896 (Paris); in 1908 (Berlin); in 1914 (Berne); in 1928 (Rome); in 1948 (Brussels); in 1967 (Stockholm); in 1971 (Paris) and amended in 1979. By Apr 1999 there were 138 states party to the Convention.