THE LAW OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY FOOTNOTES |
CHAPTER 4 <fn6> <fn7> [*115] Donaldson v. Beckett, 17 Parliamentary Hist. 991. <fn8> [*118] When it is said, in chapter first, page 19, that "an
author sells his ideas in his vo1ume," that "an editor sells his in his sheets," &c., it is not meant that they necessarily sold an entire and unqualified
right of property in their ideas; but only a partial or qualified right, viz.: a right to the mental possession and mental enjoyment of them. Whethcr the purchaser acquires any forther right of property than this,
in the ideas described in the volumes and papers, will depend on the principles laid down in this chapter. <fn9> [*121] It is perhaps worthy of notice, in this connexion, that a man can acquire, from a
written description, the same mental possession of houses and lands, that he can of ideas. That is, he can acquire the same knowledge of houses and lands, that he can of ideas; and this
knowledge of ideas is all the possession of them that he can, in any way, acquire. It would seem, therefore, that if this merely mental
possession of things, which is acquired by reading about them, were of any importanee, in law, it ought to have the same importance and effect, in the case of houses and lands, as in the case of ideas.
|