Williams & Wilkins Co. v. United States

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Williams & Wilkins Co. v. United States, 487 F.2d 1345 (Ct. Cl. 1973), was an important intellectual property decision by the federal Court of Claims (later affirmed by a per curium opinion from an evenly divided United States Supreme Court, with only eight justices voting, 420 U.S. 376 (1975))^[1]. The decision held that it was a fair use for libraries to photocopy articles for use by patrons engaged in scientific research.

This decision has been cited as part of the trend in which the courts will take a cautious approach to intellectual property issues raised by the advent of new technology. Rather than enforce the rights of the author articles by placing a prohibition on such copying, the Court in this case held that this was not prohibited by the law as written, leaving it to the United States Congress to address the issue through legislation.