Even before the Statute of Monopolies (1623), the Crown rewarded an inventor with a limited monopoly in exchange for public disclosure of “a new invention and a new trade within the kingdom … or if a man hath made a new discovery of any thing”:  Clothworkers of Ipswich Case (1653), Godb. 252, 78 E.R. 147, at p. 148, where the court went on to say that the effect of an unjustified monopoly was “to take away free-trade, which is the birthright of every… [read post]