>Tom Moran <[log in to unmask]>
>> "Intellectual property" is a phrase you'll search for in vain in
>> the 18th and 19th centuries and indeed most of the 20th.
>  But look at the US Constitution (18th centry) for the concept, if not
>the phrase,

Two members of this list provided me the [same] excerpt that they think is the
one you had in mind:

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Article I (which defines the legislative branch of our federal government),
Section 8 (referring to powers of the legislature), Clause 8:

"Clause 8: [The Congress shall have Power] To 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;"
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In this clause the concept is quite different: the "exclusive Right for limited
Times" is rather concrete concept, but the "intellectual property", on the
contrary, is a broad and generic concept, it can be easily used as a source
of various far-fetched deductions. So, replacing the "exclusive Right" by the
"property" (no matter, intellectual or of another kind), is an unjustified
extension.