Copyright Clause - Effect

Effect

The clause actually confers two distinct powers: the power to secure for limited times to authors the exclusive right to their writings is the basis for U.S. copyright law, and the power to secure for limited times to inventors the exclusive rights to their discoveries is the basis for U.S. patent law. Because the clause contains no language under which Congress may protect trademarks, those are instead protected under the Commerce Clause. Some terms in the clause are used in archaic meanings, potentially confusing modern readers. For example, "useful Arts" does not refer to artistic endeavors, but rather to the work of artisans, people skilled in a manufacturing craft; "Science" is not limited to fields of modern scientific inquiry, but to all knowledge, including philosophy and literature.

The Copyright Clause is the only clause granting power to Congress for which the means to accomplish its stated purpose are specifically provided. The exact limitations of this clause have been defined through a number of United States Supreme Court cases interpreting the text. For example, the Court has determined that because the purpose of the clause is to stimulate development of the works it protects, its application cannot result in inhibiting such progress. However, there has been a countervailing strain in the courts that has promoted a varying view.

Furthermore, the clause only permits protection of the writings of authors and the discoveries of inventors. Hence, writings may only be protected to the extent that they are original, and "inventions" must be truly inventive and not merely obvious improvements on existing knowledge. The term "writings of authors" appears to exclude non-human authorship such as painting by chimpanzees and computer code written by programmed computers, but the issue has not been tested in litigation.

Although perpetual copyrights and patents are prohibited—the language specifies "limited times"—the Supreme Court has ruled in Eldred v. Ashcroft (2003) that repeated extensions to the term of copyright do not constitute a perpetual copyright. In that case, the United States Supreme Court rejected a challenge to the Sonny Bono Copyright Term Extension Act, also known pejoratively as the "Mickey Mouse Protection Act." Petitioners in that case argued that successive retroactive extensions of copyright were functionally unlimited and hence violated the limited times language of the clause. Justice Ginsburg, writing for the Court, rejected this argument, reasoning that the terms provided by the Act were limited in duration and noted that Congress had a long history of granting retroactive extensions.