Posted
on July 31, 2015
You
probably know that a patent is an official license granting an
inventor the sole right to make, use, and sell his or her invention
for a set number of years. It's a sort of legal protection for what
is called “intellectual property” – for example, specific plans
for how to build a steam hammer, or the concept of a pen with a
rotating ball in its point – so that other people can't just steal
the inventor's idea.
Actually,
that is the MODERN definition of patents. A long time ago, in
England and in colonial America, patents weren't about the rights of
inventors to profit from their own inventions. Instead, patents were
licenses to produce and profit, all right, but they were conferred by
the king or other governmental official on whoever they wanted. In
other words, the king might give his nephew a patent to produce
globes, his childhood friend a patent to produce compound
microscopes, and his uncle a patent to produce graphite pencil
“leads” – even though those three lucky fellows had nothing to
do with inventing those items!
There
wasn't a general policy of who should get patent rights. Instead,
each decision about a patent was specific to that one case. A king or
Congress could be just or nepotistic in assigning patent
rights.
Near
the end of the 1600s, English judges began to change patent law in
favor of the inventors. However, the transition to our modern
understanding of patents was not complete for about a century.
In
the spring of 1790, the almost-two-year-old nation called the United
States of America passed its first patent law. Of course, at that
point, there had already been loads of patents given in the region
that was now the U.S., under the aforementioned Colonial / English
system.
The
new patent law didn't get used much its first year; only three
patents were granted in 1790. The very first one was granted on this
date in 1790, to Samuel Hopkins for a process of making potash, which
is an ingredient in fertilizer. The patent was signed by President
George Washington! And the Patent Commission, at the time, was made
up of Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of War Henry
Knox, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph.
(I
guess it's good that there were so few patent applications at that
time. Sure Washington, Jefferson, Knox, and Randolph had a few other
important duties to attend to!)
By
the way...
All
the records of all the patents granted from 1790 to 1836 were burned
up in an accidental fire, while they were in temporary storage. There
were no copies or rosters kept, at the time. Nobody knows for sure
exactly how many patents were granted in that time—the best
estimate is 9,957—so we call these patents X-Patents. (“X” is
often considered a symbol of “the unknown.”)There was a call to all the inventors to produce their copies of their patents so that the collection could be reconstructed.
At
this time, people decided that there should be a serial numbering
system, which is still used today. Before that, patents were referred
to by title and date, but numbering the patents helped with filing
and referral to earlier patents.
So
all of the early inventions in the reconstructed files were given
numbers retroactively, so that they could be a part of the new
numbering system. The pre-1836 inventions have an “X” by their
numbers as a reminder that we aren't completely certain of the order
in which those patents were granted.
Also,
some of these early patents came to light after other, later patents;
they have been given fractional numbers so chronological order can be
maintained. Instead of being marked with an “X,” these patents
have “FX” for Fractional X-Patents.
Here is an example of some X-Patent numbers:
Here is an example of some X-Patent numbers:
- Samuel Hopkins's invention, honored here, is #1X.
- Eli Whitney's famous cotton gin is #72X.
- Aaron Hale's modification for wheels and axels #8736 and 7/8 FX.
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