Antoine Lavoisier Quotes
This theory [the oxygen theory] is not as I have heard it described, that of the French chemists, it is mine (elle est la mienne); it is a property which I claim from my contemporaries and from posterity.
Lavoisier, Antoine. Mémoires de Chimie, vol. 2, 1805, p. 87. Quoted in Antoine Lavoisier: Scientist, Economist, Social Reformer, by Douglas McKie, Henry Schuman, 1952, p. 293.
Note that the only reason given in the constitution for protecting intellectual property was to promote the progress of science and useful arts. Inventors, would keep secret their inventions and techniques of manufacture and use in order to protect their economic interests. No one else would be able to benefit by understanding the invention and taking it further and increasing knowledge and understanding. So the Founding Fathers told Congress to establish a system where inventors would get a guarantee of a reasonable time to profit exclusively from the invention in exchange for making the invention public. The plans, methods and drawings had to be made public and until the 20th century a model of an invention had to be supplied to the Patent Office. Anyone could get an inexpensive copy of any patent and come and study the models. Today, most people believe that the reason for a patent system is to protect the intellectual property of the inventor, but that was not a purpose or even a serious consideration. The reason however was educational and to demystify technology and produce more science and technology which it did.
Antoine-Laurent de Lavoisier, also Antoine Lavoisier after the French Revolution, was a French nobleman and chemist who was central to the 18th-century chemical revolution and who had a large influence on both the history of chemistry and the history of biology. He is widely considered in popular literature as the "father of modern chemistry".
