queness, novelty, and innovation. As Thomas Jefferson said in a letter to one Isaac McPherson that otherwise expressed skepticism toward the notion of granting of patents and monopolies:
Society may give an exclusive right to the profits arising from [inventions], as an encouragement to men to pursue ideas which may produce utility, but this may or may not be done, according to the will and convenience of the society, without claim or complaint from anybody. . . . it may be observed that the nations which refuse monopolies of invention, are as fruitful as England in new and useful devices (Jefferson, 1940, p. 290).
Jefferson's oft-quoted statement has been used to prove both that he was the father of American patents and an opponent of granting them for profit. Each idea can be supported in part, though Jefferson's last remark about the equivalence of innovation in all countries has been overtaken in the modern period by dramatic differences between industrialized countries of the world, particularly the industrial democracies, and so-called developing
...