224
Stevens, J., dissenting
here, when the patent expires the monopoly created by it expires, too, and the right to make the article—including the right to make it in precisely the shape it carried when patented—passes to the public. Kellogg Co. v. National Biscuit Co., 305 U. S. 111, 120-122 (1938); Singer Mfg. Co. v. June Mfg. Co., 163 U. S. 169, 185 (1896)." Sears, Roebuck & Co., 376 U. S., at 230.
It is that ultimate purpose that explains why a patent may not issue unless it discloses the invention in such detail that one skilled in the art may copy it. See, e. g., Grant v. Raymond, 6 Pet. 218, 247 (1832) (Marshall, C. J.) ("The third section [of the 1793 Act] requires, as preliminary to a patent, a correct specification and description of the thing discovered. This is necessary in order to give the public, after the privilege shall expire, the advantage for which the privilege is allowed, and is the foundation of the power to issue the patent"). Complete disclosure as a precondition to the issuance of a patent is part of the quid pro quo that justifies the limited monopoly for the inventor as consideration for full and immediate access by the public when the limited time expires.2
Almost two centuries ago the Court plainly stated that public access to inventions at the earliest possible date was the essential purpose of the Clause:
"While one great object was, by holding out a reasonable reward to inventors and giving them an exclusive right to their inventions for a limited period, to stimulate the efforts of genius; the main object was 'to promote the
2 Attorney General Wirt made this precise point in his argument in Gibbons v. Ogden, 9 Wheat., at 175: "The limitation is not for the advantage of the inventor, but of society at large, which is to take the benefit of the invention after the period of limitation has expired. The patentee pays a duty on his patent, which is an effective source of revenue to the United States. It is virtually a contract between each patentee and the people of the United States, by which the time of exclusive and secure enjoyment is limited, and then the benefit of the discovery results to the public."
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