Z:gnu-www-ja-eldred-amicus--020489-The words =26ldquo;for limited T/en

The words &ldquo;for limited Times&rdquo; appear in the Copyright Clause, Article I, &#167;8, cl. 8 as the result of long and bitter experience with the constitutional evil of state-awarded monopolies. From the seventeenth century, the requirement of limitation in time was a basic constitutional mechanism for dealing with the potential for abuse of power inherent in the royal or statutory monopoly. The use by Queen Elizabeth of letters patent monopolizing certain trades as a means of raising money from bidders for monopoly profits gave rise to the case of Darcy v. Allen, (The Case of Monopolies), 11 Co. Rep. 84 (1603), in which a royal patent monopoly on the making and distribution of playing cards was held void. Parliament followed in 1624 with the Statute of Monopolies, 21 Jac. I, c. 3, which declared that only Parliament might grant statutory monopolies, limited to new inventions, for a period not to exceed fourteen years. See 4 William Blackstone, Commentaries on the Laws of England *159 (1769). This constitutional limitation was evaded by Charles I during his period of despotic personal rule; the resulting royal monopolies formed a significant grievance in the years leading up to the English Civil War. See Cecily Violet Wedgwood, The King's Peace 156-62 (1955).