Patent Reform & Old Patents

As “patent reform” makes news; a historic collection of thirteen original U.S. patents signed by Presidents, Secretaries of State, and Attorneys General has been published on the Internet, by patent attorney Richard Beem. 

The 200 year-old patents, printed by hand on parchment, are now yellow and wavy, with faded ribbons and seals, water stains and other marks of time. They bear the original signatures of John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, other presidents, and members of their cabinets.  This patent collection is displayed in Beem Chicago offices, including an early 1800's model, two British patents and letters by famous inventors, Edison, Watt and Morse.

The founding fathers provided for patents in the Constitution in order “to promote the Progress ‘of the’ useful Arts.”

Then, as now, the nation struggled with issues of infrastructure, competitiveness, and the conveniences and comforts of modern life. Inventors were rewarded with patents for their advances in road-building, water power, coal stoves, cast iron shears, butter churns, “washing machines,” and especially new techniques for weaving cloth (it took six weeks to make a pair of bedsheets).

Then, as now, there was controversy over the standards for examination of patent applications and the nature of the rights bestowed on patentees. The first Patent Act, in 1790, was followed by periodic revisions, the most significant of which, in 1836, gave us a basic framework of patent law that remains in force today, requiring utility, novelty and nonobviousness of those select inventions that are deemed patentable.

As these words are written, efforts at patent reform are brewing in Congress, the courts, and the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Before amending the law of patents, the reformers would do well to remember that they write not on a blank slate, but on one that has been engraved by thoughtful men and women of the 18th, 19th, and 20th centuries.