Alexander Graham Bell and his business partner, Gardiner Hubbard, filed a patent application for an invention entitled an “Improvement in Telegraphy” on February 14, 1876. A few hours later, a prominent inventor by the name of Elisha Gray applied for a patent caveat for a similar invention from the same office. In March, Bell’s patent was approved by the patent office and the legal battle over the rights to the telephone patent had begun. 

At the center of this conflict was a statute explicitly authorized by the Constitution. Under Article I, Section 8, Clause 8, Congress was empowered “To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries.” The exclusive right to the discoveries of a scientific nature is known as a patent, while a comparable right to literary works is known as a copyright.

This constitutional provision was not an entirely new innovation drawn from the minds of the founders. There was a fairly long and not always noble history behind it. In Britain and elsewhere, monopoly rights were conferred by the crown to make use of a new technology or even an old asset, often in exchange for a fee paid to the treasury. Elizabeth I infamously granted monopolies for the sale of salt, starch, and glass in return for payments that for all practical purposes were specialized taxes. Parliament curbed these practices by enacting the 1623 English Statute of Monopolies. This law forbad the monarch from granting monopolies of any kind with the single exception of letters patent that were granted for new inventions that benefitted the country and which were limited in duration to no more than fourteen years.

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