Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office Society

11/01/17

Holmes on Patents: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Patent Law

Amelia Smith Rinehart

The writings and opinions of Oliver Wendell Holmes, Jr., have inspired generations of legal scholars to explain topics like pragmatic skepticism, legal positivism, legal realism, legal moralism, and other “legal-isms.” Justice Holmes—celebrated and contemptible, beloved and beleaguered, emphatically entrenched in the common law—stumbled into federal patent cases on the Supreme Court, yet there is little scholarship stemming from his few opinions in this area. As the twenty-first century ushers in a new gilded age, replete with important battles over patent law and policy as a mechanism for promoting innovation, Holmes’ unique outlook on public and private law (and patents) at the turn of the twentieth century may offer a new perspective within contemporary debates about patent law and its limitations.

98 J. Pat. & Trademark Off. Soc’y 896(2016)

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Holmes on Patents: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love Patent Law

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