Venice passed the first patent law in 1474 to lure foreign inventors with a ten-year monopoly.
On March 19, 1474, the Venetian Senate enacted a statute declaring that anyone who built "any new and ingenious device" in the city, not previously made in the Republic, could register it and receive a ten-year monopoly on its manufacture.1 The statute opened by noting that Venice's greatness attracted talented people from many places, and that protecting their inventions would encourage more of them to come.
Before this law, monopolies on inventions had been granted case by case in Venice and other Italian cities, including Florence, where Filippo Brunelleschi received a patent on a cargo ship design in 1421.2 The 1474 statute was different because it created a general legal framework, not a one-off privilege. At least 500 patents were approved under it between 1474 and 1600, covering subjects from windmills to new types of pasta.3
The concept migrated to England through letters patent, open letters issued by the monarch granting monopolies to favored individuals. Elizabeth I used the system extensively, issuing patents on common goods such as salt and starch. The resulting public outrage forced her successor, James I, to limit monopolies to "projects of new invention."4 Parliament codified this restriction in the Statute of Monopolies of 1624, which voided all existing monopolies except those granted to "the true and first inventor" for a maximum of fourteen years.5
The English statute became the legal foundation on which the Industrial Revolution could build. France established its own patent system during the Revolution of 1791. The United States enshrined intellectual property in its Constitution, Article I, Section 8, granting Congress the power to secure "for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries."6
The modern term "intellectual property" did not come into common use until the late twentieth century. The Statute of Anne of 1710, Britain's first copyright law, recognized authors as owners of their work for a limited term of fourteen years.7 The Paris Convention of 1883 and the Berne Convention of 1886 standardized patent and copyright protections across national borders.