July 31 – First U. S. Patent

nPostednon July 31, 2015

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nYounprobably know that a patent is an official license granting anninventor the sole right to make, use, and sell his or her inventionnfor a set number of years. It’s a sort of legal protection for whatnis called “intellectual property” – for example, specific plansnfor how to build a steam hammer, or the concept of a pen with anrotating ball in its point – so that other people can’t just stealnthe inventor’s idea.

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nActually,nthat is the MODERN definition of patents. A long time ago, innEngland and in colonial America, patents weren’t about the rights ofninventors to profit from their own inventions. Instead, patents werenlicenses to produce and profit, all right, but they were conferred bynthe king or other governmental official on whoever they wanted. Innother words, the king might give his nephew a patent to producenglobes, his childhood friend a patent to produce compoundnmicroscopes, and his uncle a patent to produce graphite penciln“leads” – even though those three lucky fellows had nothing tondo with inventing those items!

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nTherenwasn’t a general policy of who should get patent rights. Instead,neach decision about a patent was specific to that one case. A king ornCongress could be just or nepotistic in assigning patentnrights.

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nNearnthe end of the 1600s, English judges began to change patent law innfavor of the inventors. However, the transition to our modernnunderstanding of patents was not complete for about a century.

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nInnthe spring of 1790, the almost-two-year-old nation called the UnitednStates of America passed its first patent law. Of course, at thatnpoint, there had already been loads of patents given in the regionnthat was now the U.S., under the aforementioned Colonial / Englishnsystem. n

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nThennew patent law didn’t get used much its first year; only threenpatents were granted in 1790. The very first one was granted on thisndate in 1790, to Samuel Hopkins for a process of making potash, whichnis an ingredient in fertilizer. The patent was signed by PresidentnGeorge Washington! And the Patent Commission, at the time, was madenup of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of War HenrynKnox, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph.

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n(Inguess it’s good that there were so few patent applications at thatntime. Sure Washington, Jefferson, Knox, and Randolph had a few othernimportant duties to attend to!) n

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nBynthe way…

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Allnthe records of all the patents granted from 1790 to 1836 were burnednup in an accidental fire, while they were in temporary storage. Therenwere no copies or rosters kept, at the time. Nobody knows for surenexactly how many patents were granted in that time—the bestnestimate is 9,957—so we call these patents X-Patents. (“X” isnoften considered a symbol of “the unknown.”)

There was ancall to all the inventors to produce their copies of their patents sonthat the collection could be reconstructed.

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nAtnthis time, people decided that there should be a serial numberingnsystem, which is still used today. Before that, patents were referrednto by title and date, but numbering the patents helped with filingnand referral to earlier patents. n

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nSonall of the early inventions in the reconstructed files were givennnumbers retroactively, so that they could be a part of the newnnumbering system. The pre-1836 inventions have an “X” by theirnnumbers as a reminder that we aren’t completely certain of the ordernin which those patents were granted.

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nAlso,nsome of these early patents came to light after other, later patents;nthey have been given fractional numbers so chronological order can benmaintained. Instead of being marked with an “X,” these patentsnhave “FX” for Fractional X-Patents.

Here is an example ofnsome X-Patent numbers:

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