How long were they?

They were for 14 years. I posted links about early copyright and patent law.

My bad.

However, the constitution itself places no such limit on intellectual property laws.

There is no difference between saying that your idea is only your property for 14 years before anyone can use it, and saying that your home is only your property for 14 years, and then anyone can move in.

Yes it does. Not the exact term, but the fact that it is only for a limited time.Does your home automatically increase in size every time another family moves in?

And that limited time is defined by article I as? Oh, yes. It isn't. Ergo, there is no problem, constitutionally, with a 95 year limit, as mentioned above.

Does your idea suddenly find a broader market when someone steals it?

Either you believe in personal property rights, or you don't. Decide.

No, the constitution doesn't specify exactly how long. But if you look at the copyright and patent laws during that period, and even after, it's pretty clear copyrights/patents weren't meant to stay in the hands of the creators for more than a short period of tiem. After all, the rest of the clause says, To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times...

The courts extending the limits for decades is not in the spirit of what was meant.

That is not a Constitutional guarantee, nor is it something protected by the Constitution. Anything that happens in the courts or Congress can be changed.

I didn't say there was. But a time limit is required, and their view of a reasonable one was 14 years. It is not really property; it is an agreement from the government to promote creativity by creating a temporary monopoly for new creations.If someone "steals" your idea, you still have it. If it's a good idea, and it spreads around the world, everyone benefits. That's how ideas work.

Patents and copyrights are intended to promote the creation of new ideas, by putting old ideas in the public domain for all to build on, giving added value to the creation of new ones, and discouraging the practice of "sitting on" new ideas to decrease competition.
I believe in them as described in the Constitution.

The Constitution can be changed. So what. the way certain corporations, which are NOT PEOPLE, have twisted this to their benefit is NOT in the spirit in which that ammendment was written.

How exactly does a corporation do anything? Don't people within the organization actually do those "things" you speak of?

There is no "spirit". There is black letter law, and opinion.

Legally, corporations are people. Or at least they have the same rights, and few of the obligations.

You know what I mean. However, a corporation has the same rights (or more even) than a person. In other words, corporations have personhood. They have since the 1880s, and have systematically destroyed the rights of actual people in order to gain more and more power over the years. It's amazing more people don't know about this, and that it's taken an economic crisis for people to get really angry about the corruption in corporate America.

http://www.uuworld.org/2003/03/feature1a.html
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Corporate_personhood

Yes, and there is something very, very wrong with that concept.