choshen mishpat civil law - Patents in Halacha?

If someone invents something new (and unique), does Judaism recognize that he has ownership over the invention [for x years]?

Answer

If I understand correctly, a patent means you've told the world your idea, but the law protects others from using it to compete against you for a period of time. (As opposed to actually stealing someone's secret formula, which is an entirely different issue.) Based on my understanding of this article, there are two schools of thought among poskim about intellectual property as applies to copyrights -- I'd assume the same applies to patents, unless someone says otherwise.

1. 
   

   Inherently, your using my idea is not "stealing." However, a society has the right to enact all sorts of laws; in this case, it might encourage innovation by creating temporary, artificial ownership on ideas. Violating those terms of ownership is an unfair infringement of another person's business (hasagat g'vul) and a transgression of the law of the land (dina d'malchuta dina). This is the opinion of the late Rabbis Moshe Feinstein in America and Shlomo Zalman Auerbach in Israel (zt'l).

   
   
   


2. 
   

   Ideas can be exclusively owned -- and therefore stolen -- just as an ox, lamb, or piece of clothing can be stolen. Any stealing of ideas is Halachichally theft. This is the opinion of R' Elyashiv shlit'a.

   
   

For a related description of these two points of a view from a secular perspective, try this piece from the Economist.

Lastly, I heard a recording (sorry, don't recall which one) from R' Hershel Shachter about times when, to encourage a printing company to risk their money in printing a major Judaic text, the rabbis banned all others for several years from printing the same work. Not exactly a patent, but fairly close. It sounds like this is an enactment, and not the default halacha. (The ban would also be voided if the printing was wildly successful and the printer wound up easily "in the black.")

If I recall, the first major Halachic case of copyright infringement involved the Maharam Padua in the mid-1500s, in which he wrote to his cousin R' Moshe Issreles for psak. Could be worth studying the discussion there for more details.