Draft:Proprietariness

Proprietariness, or being proprietary, is the state of something being property that is under the ownership of a person, group, or other entity, and for which the owner can therefore restrict use by others.

"PROPRIETARY., n. A proprietor or owner; one who has the exclusive title to a thing. one who possesses or holds the title to a thing in his own right. The grantees of Pennsylvania and Maryland and their heirs were called the proprietaries of those provinces. Webster.

PROPRIETARY., adj. Relating or pertaining to ownership. belonging or pertaining to a single individual owner.

-—Proprietary articles. Goods manufactured under some exclusive individual right to make and sell them. The term is chiefly used in the internal revenue laws of the United States. See Ferguson v. Arthur, 117 U.S. 482 6 Sup. Ct. 861. 29 L Ed. 979; In re Gourd (C. C.) 49 Fed. 729.—Proprietary chapel. See .—Proprietary governments. This expression is used by Blackstone to denote governments granted out by the crown to individuals, in the nature of feudatory principalities, with inferior regalities and subordinate powers of legislation such as formerly belonged to the owners of counties palatine. 1 Comm 108.—Proprietary rights. Those rights which an owner of property has by virtue of his ownership. When. proprietary rights are opposed to acquired rights. such as easements, franchises, etc., they are more often called "natural rights." Sweet."

A substantial concern for society is the assertion of proprietariness to material that should be in the public domain. For example, in a 1989 congressional hearing, United States Air Force officer Ernest Fitzgerald testified that the designation of data as "proprietary" in military contracts was belied by "ample evidence that much of the material that is said to be proprietary is commonly available within the Defense Department and within the defense contractor community".

A proprietary product is:

"One that has a unique formulation or characteristic and is therefore clearly distinguishable from other products. A proprietary product is usually one covered by a patent and is either manufactured by a single company or by other companies under licence. The term proprietary is often applied to medicines to denote the product of an individual company."

"The word proprietary means a product that is designed, manufactured, marketed, and serviced under exclusive legal right of the inventor or manufacturer."