The Constitutional Convention wisely provided that if the American people are to grant a monopoly in an intellectual production the man who makes that intellectual production shall give it to the American people; and he gives it to the American people by first furnishing them the fullest information of its character, in the case of a patent, or in the case of a copyright he gives it to the American people by consenting to the terms upon which it was issued, namely, that it shall be free after the expiration of the limited time for which it was granted. Further than that, in taking out a copyright, or in taking out a patent, the man consents that the copyright shall be confined to his writing, and shall not extend to any other form of expression of his intellectual idea. I am not alone in this. The Supreme Court of the United States is with me. Mr. CHANEY. Just a moment: It has not occurred to me that this is not either a question of continuity of property or a question of the quality of the property. It is simply a question of just to what extent people are to be given the control of their own writings, and as to just through what different forms they will be able to trace their property. Mr. WALKER. That is the question, and that is the exact question which I am going to address myself to now. Mr. CHANEY. Very well. Mr. WALKER. The case of the "Trade-Mark Cases" was decided by the Supreme Court of the United States in 1880, and it is reported in 100 United States Reports, at page 94. In that case the owners of certain collocations of words which they were using as trade-marks sought to sustain the validity of their trade-mark under the copyright law, holding that those words constituted writings which were copyrightable and which had been copyrighted. The Supreme Court unanimously decided that the statute which they invoked, which statute was abundantly broad enough to cover that provision, was unconstitutional, because although these collocations of words were writings in the literal sense they were not writings within the sense of the Constitution. In so deciding, the Supreme Court narrowed down the meaning of the word "writings" instead of extending it, by holding that the Constitution gives a monopoly not to writings in general but only to such writings as have some literary character and permanent value in themselves. This is the language of Justice Miller: And while the word writings may be liberally construed, as it has been, to include original designs for engravings, prints, etc., it is only such as are original and are founded in the creative powers of the mind. The writings which are to be protected are the fruits of intellectual labor, embodied in the form of books, prints, engravings, and the like. The case which the Supreme Court had before it on this subject next is the Sarony case, decided in 1883, and reported in 111 U.S., page 58. Mr. CHANEY. We had that yesterday.