Intellectual Property and Technology Transfer

Next came the patent laws... [The Patent laws began] in this country, with the adoption of our constitution. Before then, any man might instantly use what another had invented; so that the inventor had no special advantage from his own invention. The patent system changed this; secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things.

-Abraham Lincoln