The colonials who first settled North America, primarily from Great Britain, were industrious, practial people who relied on invention and ingenuity to solve new problems presented by the frontier world they encountered. They had limited tools and resources.

The Founding Fathers, when drafting the new Constitution in 1781 after the Articles of Conferation proved unworkable, desired to give Congress basic powers to promote commerce and help the nation grow.

In the summer of 1787, when the new Constitution was drafted and signed, the world and the Nation stood at the dawn of the Industrial Revolution. The Constitution's drafters understood the power of invention to promote and develop the nation. Already in the late 18^thcentury, the new republic had learned the importace to the nation of creativity, science, and art. The invention of the cotton gin, the steam engine, the railroad, and other important tools were only a few decades away.

The national philosophy encouraged invention and ingenuity also. Many of the colonials had emigrated from a feudal land and patent system where farms and estates were passed to the first-born son. The ownership of ideas counted for little. Without land or wealth, smart, intelligent second-born brothers and sisters found little encouragement to invent and prosper -- and so they left the Old Country to profit in the New.

The Founders set about to change that system. They promoted "life, liberty, and the pursuit of Happiness" among the second- and third-born by encouraging :

the free exchange of ideas and
the protection of rights in intellectual property.

Congress was given only a few specified powers. Most of Congress' powers were left vague and were not listed. However, the intellectual property rights were sufficiently important to the founders that they spelled them out specifically in the Constitution.

Let's take a look at the source documents.

Article 1, Section 8

Section. 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

U.S Constitution, Article 1, Section 8 -- http://www.nara.gov/exhall/charters/constitution/constitution.html

At first, the First Amendment's guarantee of Free Speech, and Article I's protection of property rights in ideas may seem at odds with each other. Wouldn't the free exchange of ideas, that is, the sharing of ideas, be stifled by a system which awards property rights in ideas?

This question often is raised in the Internet age to argue that freedom of speech dilutes, rubs out, or should negate intellectual property rights. Ah, such sweet chaos!

There is a well-settled principle in analyzing documents, especially legal documents, which says that apparent conflicts in language first should be "harmonized" to see whether they are in conflict, or whether they can instead be read to avoid conflict. This principle of "statutory construction" assumes that the drafters knew what they were doing when they wrote the legislation, and were aware of the seemingly conflicting law when they drafted a later or contemporaneous document.

Avoiding conflict in legislation serves many useful purposes. It requires people to look at legislation for the broader purposes the drafters had in mind, and not just look at law as it might apply if it had been directed to apply only to present circumstances. "Harmonizing" legislation also effectively prevents "virtual" or imagined "conflicts" from prevailing

So, did the First Amendment free speech clause negate the protection of property rights when it was adopted by the states shortly after the Constitution itself was ratified? Few have ever asserted or supported this claim, and the courts certainly have not adopted it.