The “natural rights” theory.
meanwhile, invokes another commonsense premise that most of us instinctively hold to be true: that the product of mental labor is by all rights the property of its creator, no less than the product of physical labor is the property of its creator

(or of the person who purchases it from that creator). This is what Daniel Webster was referring to when he said, “The American Constitution does not attempt to give an inventor a right to their invention, or an author a right to his composition; it recognizes an original, pre-existing, inherent right of property in such invention or composition.”

This right is not absolute, of course, and inventors’ inherent rights may at times be circumscribed by national security or other concerns. But in exchange for disclosing to the public the nature and details of the invention, the Constitution authorizes the government to enforce the inventor’s exclusive property right to that invention for a limited time.