Alfred Bell & Co. Ltd. v. Catalda Fine Arts, Inc.

FRANK, Circuit Judge.

1. Congressional power to authorize both patents and copyrights is contained in Article 1, § 8 of the Constitution. 1 In passing on the validity of patents, the Supreme Court recurrently insists that this constitutional provision governs. On this basis, pointing to the Supreme Court’s consequent requirement that, to be valid, a patent must disclose a high degree of uniqueness, ingenuity and inventiveness, the defendants assert, that the same requirement constitutionally governs copyrights. As several sections of the Copyright Act — e. g., those authorizing copyrights of…