American Patent Law

Robert Merges is a professor of law at Berkeley Law (University of California), where he co-directs the Berkeley Center for Law & Technology. He has been writing about patents and patent law for over thirty years.

• 1. Introduction: Overview and themes; 2. Founding era patent law, 1790-1820; 3. The Jacksonian era and early industrialization, 1820-1880; 4. Corporatization, 1880-1920; 5. 1921-1982: Patents in and out of the headlines; 6. The federal circuit era; 7. In conclusion: The private (law) life of patents.

'The product of Merges's decades of research on the patent system, this masterful study transcends the simple debate over patents as a stimulus to technological discovery and documents their role in helping ensure that inventions are put to productive use. Whatever your view of patents, you will find much that is new and intriguing in Merges's analysis of how patents have been used to obtain financing and organize enterprises to exploit promising new technologies.' Naomi R. Lamoreaux, Stanley B. Resor Professor of Economics and History, Yale University