Show first patent was issued years ago since then uncle sam has granted more than an to his inventive sor so Us by ELMO SCOTT WATSON released by western newspaper union ULY 31 of this year marks i JULY the anniversary of a red letter day on the american calendar it was not the date of a great military or naval victory nor of a significant event in our 0 ur social or political history what took place on that day does nota not in n itself seem important for it was simply this on july 31 1790 the united states of america granted to one samuel hopkins of vermont a patent for a method of making pot and pearl ashes but this was the first of more than patents which have been issued since that time and written between the lines of the records of those patents is the story of the in bentive genius which has made blean economic system capitalized at billions of dollars and has given the united states its position as the greatest industrial and business nation in the world the american patent system had its genesis in that yankee ingenuity which began to manifest itself early in the history of english colonization of north america nearly years ago in october 1641 the massachusetts chu bay colony granted 1 to samuel winslow a patent for a period of 10 years for a new method of manufacturing salt this was followed by similar grants in other colonies but mainly in new england to promote the manufacture of iron the building of grist mills and various other enterprises necessary for the development of industry along with agriculture and trade so when the new nation was established the founding fathers determined to include in the laws of the land statutes which would encourage invention and protect the inventor during the constitutional convention james madison of virginia and charles C pinckney of south carolina offered the first proposals for patent and copyright laws these suggestions which received the indorsement endorsement indor and encouragement of thomas jefferson and george washington resulted in congress passing an act on august which governed the issuance of both patents and copyrights jefferson patent examiner during the first session of congress applications for patents were filed by 15 inventors at the second session it was decided to separate the two rights in the first law and on april 10 1790 the first law applying only to patents was enacted jurisdiction over applications under this law was given to the commissioners for the promotion of useful arts they were three members of thomas jefferson secretary of state henry knox secretary of war and edmund randolph attorney general and the task of administering the patent law was assigned to the state department so jefferson became in effect the first patent examiner and his staff for this work consisted of a single clerk of the 15 applications made during the first year three patents were granted the first went to samuel hopkins for his method of making pot and pearl ashes the second was for a machine to make candles flour and meal a queer combination thail and the third for a method of making punches for type the remaining 12 granted in 1791 were for the following improvement pro in distilling methods driving dm ing piles for bridges a threshing machine a machine for breaking hemp a marble cutter and polisher a tide mill a machine for making nails and threshing wheat another queer combination nation nl a method of diminishing spindle friction a formula for making an extract of barks an improved bedstead a method of making boots and a method of using cattle for propelling boats under this first act a total of 57 patents were granted when the seat of gov government emment was moved to the new capital on the potomac washington city in 1800 the patent office equipment records and models were loaded on a boagan boat and d sailed to georgetown where they were carted to the new quarters on perm pennsylvania avenue between nineteenth and twentieth streets at a cost to the government of As ai the patent office grew lif it became necessary to app appoint ointa a superintendent to direct its work J W thornton was the man se T 1 rk A I 1 A 7 an employee of the smithsonian institution holds the model of an invention which was an improvement in the method of lifting vessels over shoals the patent issued may 22 1449 was granted to an inventor from illinois named abraham lincoln yes TIRE THE abraham lincoln lecter and he was given a salary of 1400 a year allowed a clerk at and a messenger at 72 a year later thornton was given the title of commissioner and removed the office to crokers 2 story house on eighth street again in 1810 the patent office was moved this time to a famous hotel blodgette Blod getts on E street where it shared quarters with the post office department thorntons Thorn tons great service thornton deserves to be remembered gratefully by his countrymen for a deed which he performed during the war of 1812 when a british force captured washington in m 1814 and began burning the public buildings thornton went to the british major who was in in charge of the burning in that section of the city and pleaded his case so earnestly that the patent office with its records and models were spared twenty two years later a f force orce against which his eloquence ence would have been unavailing nullified his patriotic effort in 1836 during the administration of H L ellsworth who became commissioner of patents upon thorntons Thorn tons death in 1828 1 a fire swept through the patent office and destroyed the accumulation of models and all the records excepting one book fortunately tuna tely a clerk had taken that book home the night before the ay a M anwa tj u PEE 0 0 ao 40 drawings of the parts which made up ell whitneys Whit cotton gin fire As the result of this disaster a new patent office building was erected at F and ninth streets northwest and it served as the home of the patent office until 1932 when all departments of the office were moved to the new commerce building erected during the administration of president hoover former secretary of commerce incidentally the patent office is the father of the department of agriculture because in m 1839 the commissioner of patents was given the duty of collecting and publishing farm statistics and for many years patent office funds were used to distribute free seeds to the farmers this arrangement continued until 1862 when the present department of agriculture was founded the patent office with the smithsonian in institution ution also served as the official united states weather bureau for a time its duties overlapped into the agricultural field again in 1930 when it was authorized zed to issue patents for new sorts of plants in the plant patent bill for which luther burbank the plant wizard and thomas A edison did some effective lobbying in 1877 at a second fire took its toll of more than models damaged or destroyed and three years later the patent office discontinued its practice i of requiring inventors to submit models along with th their r applications for patents by this time even with the destruction wrought by the fire of 1877 there was such a great stock of them on hand that their storage became a problem in 1925 congress passed an act changing requirements for getting a patent instead of requiring models and keeping them for inspection by prospective inventors drawings and specifications of all patented inventions are now printed in small pamphlets which may be purchased at a small cost and studied at leisure however thousands of scientists engineers scholars and others visit the examining room of the patent office in the commerce building to pore over its records for here is is the largest single source of scientific information in the world roll call of fame there the visitor may read the contemporary records of in inventions vent ions which have profoundly affected the course of history not only in in america but in in the whole world there he may be reminded again of the inventors whose fame ranks with our statesmen and military and naval heroes he rolis beginning with eli eh whitney and his cotton gin they include such names as mccormick and his reaper morse and the telegraph te I 1 egr a ph bell and the telephone fulton and the steamboat sholes and the typewriter westinghouse and the air brake thomas A edison and a score of inventions which gave to the world more than of new property and orville and wilbur wright and the airplane incidentally away back in m 1822 a philadelphia mathematician named james bennett presented to congress this statement that your petitioner having invented a machine by which a I 1 man can fly through the air can soar to any height steer in any direction can start from any PI place ace and light without risk of injury and whereas a like machine has river never e been invented vented ri in any country or age of the world so as to be applied to purposes of practical utility and it is more than probable that artificial flying would not for a hundred years to come be brought to the same degree of perfection had bad not your petitioner under providence accomplished complis hed it and as it must be evident to all that letters patent would be of little use to the inventor in consequence of various modifications or improvements which might be made and which never would have been thought of had not the way first been opened by your petitioner he therefore solicits a special act of the congress of the united states to secure to him and his heirs for the term of 40 years or for such other term as in their wisdom may be deemed just the right of steering flying machines through that portion of the earths atmosphere mo sphere which presses on the united states or so far as their jurisdiction may extend by granting your petitioners petition ers request the honor of the invention shall be conferred on the united states bennetts petition was passed back and forth between various committees in congress then he was notified that no action would be taken on it because the members had so much business ol 01 a terrestrial character before them that they felt this matter above their reach thereby they proved themselves bum guess ers indeed much worse than bennett he missed it by only 14 years he had said that artificial flying would not be perfected for a hundred years to come the date of the wrights first firs t successful flight at kitty hawk N C was 1908 |