The Presidential Patent Collection: Copyright Describing an American Practical Catechism

Historical Copyright and Patent

Hi, I’m Rich Beem. I’m a patent attorney and I would like to tell you about my collection of old, original patents signed by Presidents, Secretary of State, and Attorney General of the United States. This document is another original. This is a copyright for the American practical catechism. It was signed by the Secretary of State John Quincy Adams, who comes down to us in history as one of the best Secretary of State who has ever served the United States. This has some interesting language in it. It talks about inculcating sentiments of morality and virtue in young readers. And it’s compiled by the aid of persons of various denominations who are interested in the education of children with an appendix for parents and teachers. This is the second edition, so it must have been a pretty good book or they wouldn’t have been printing it in the second edition. And this copyright was valuable because it provided exclusive rights to the author of this catechism. I have another document. This is another old patent, an original patent that’s part of the collection. It’s a one of a kind document. This is on a patent for cast iron truss sheers. The inventor was Ennis Baldwin, a citizen of the United States. And his invention has to do with sheers for cutting cast iron. That was important technology at that time. The President who signed this patent was James Monroe, that’s his original signature. The Secretary of State was John Quincy Adams and the Attorney General was William Wirt. And you can see here a hand-written specification that explains what the invention was about that led to the issuance of this patent. By the way, the fee for filing a patent application back in these early days was thirty dollars, which was quite a bit of money at that time. I’m Rich Beem, Chicago patent attorney. And we will continue our tour of the patent collection – The Presidential Patent Collection –in the next room. Thank you for joining me!