Background
De Wolf was born in Des Moines, Iowa in 1875.
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Richard Wolf
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He attended Massachusetts Institute of Technology for two years before joining the United States. Marines in 1899 and fighting in the Spanish–American War.
Career
He first started working for the United States Copyright Office in 1907. In 1913 he received his Bachelor of Laws from George Washington University Law School, eventually leaving the Copyright Office in 1918 to practice law privately. De Wolf worked for the Copyright Office on and off for the next several decades until being appointed acting Register of Copyrights on January 1, 1945 to replace Clement Lincoln Bouvé.
He served in that capacity until February 1, 1945, when Sam Bass Warner was appointed the fourth Register of Copyrights.
De Wolf died on March 8, 1947 and is buried in Saint Augustine, Florida. De Wolf is also noted as one of the earliest scholars to suggest a completely disjunctive reading of the Copyright Clause.
The Clause, which gives Congress the power to grant both copyrights and patents, states
De Wolf wrote in his book "An Outline of Copyright Law" that one could resolve this statement disjunctively, illustrating the separate grants of authority for copyrights and patents, so that it states "(1) The progress of science is to be promoted by securing to authors the right to their writings. And (2) the progress of useful arts is to be promoted by securing to inventors the right to their discoveries." The Supreme Court endorsed this view in 1966 in Graham v.
John Deere Company, citing "An Outline of Copyright Law.".
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Born
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Died
March 8, 1947 (aged 72)