The Physician's Immunity Statute: A Botched Operation Or a Model Procedure‪?‬

I. INTRODUCTION The American patent system stems from Article I, Section 8, of the United States Constitution, which authorizes Congress "[t]o promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries." (1) When Congress exercised this new grant of power in 1790, it charged Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State, with overseeing the development of the fledgling patent system. (2) The fundamental idea driving the patent system was that Congress wanted to reward inventors with the right to exclude others from making, using, selling, or offering to sell their invention in exchange for the inventors' voluntary disclosure of the detailed workings of their discovery to the public. (3) To enforce these exclusive rights, Congress empowered patent holders to bring an infringement suit against persons using, practicing, selling, or offering to sell the invention without obtaining permission from the inventor.