Owning Ideas is a comprehensive account of the emergence of the concept of intellectual property in the United States during the long nineteenth century. In the modern information era, intellectual property has become a central economic and cultural phenomenon and an important lever for allocating wealth and power. This book uncovers the intellectual origins of this modern concept of private property in ideas through a close study of its emergence within the two most important areas of this field: patent and copyright. By placing the development of legal concepts within their social context,...

This comprehensive two-volume collection includes some of the most important and influential articles published on the history of intellectual property. The seminal works compiled in these volumes encompass a broad variety of specific legal fields, periods and methodological perspectives. The collection focuses on the three main subfields of intellectual property: patent, copyright and trademark law. Volume I covers patent and copyright in Britain as well as U.S. patents. Volume II discusses U.S. copyright and trademarks along with colonial and international intellectual property law. ...