The American Nickname ‘‘Yankee’’ Originated in the Dutch Word for ‘‘Smuggler’’ Suggesting that Violation of European Economic Restrictions Had Been Second Nature to the Colonists

The challenge to Whitney’s claim of originality rested on supposedly preexisting devices already in use outside the borders of the United States. Southern juries and state legislatures believed that the cotton gin was brought over from Europe rather than invented by Whitney because just about everywhere they turned they encountered imported technology. Whitney’s failure to cash in on the fruits of his invention highlights the central paradox of the emerging American understanding of intellectual property. The United States enacted a patent law in 1790 that restricted patent protection exclusively to original inventors and ruled that prior use anywhere automatically invalidated a patent. Alas, this principled commitment to absolute intellectual property had little to do with reality. Smuggling technology from Europe and claiming the privileges of invention was quite common and most of the political and intellectual elite of the revolutionary and early national generation were directly or indirectly involved in technology piracy. And they were following in the footsteps of their ancestors. Americans had welcomed such practices since the early days of European colonization. The American nickname ‘‘Yankee’’ originated in the Dutch word for ‘‘smuggler,’’ and suggests that violation of European economic restrictions had been second nature to the colonists from the early days of settlement.

--Doron S. Ben-Atar, introduction to Trade Secrets: Intellectual Piracy and the Origins of American Industrial Power (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2004), xv.