The Presidential Patent Collection: Patents Signed by Historical American Leaders

Hi! I’m Rich Beem. I’m a patent attorney in Chicago. I have a very interesting and unique collection of original old patent documents that were signed by the President, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General of the United States. I’d like to tell you a little bit about this collection. I’m standing now in the reception room of my offices in Chicago where all of these originals are actually on the wall. This particular patent is on a patent for a method of making rope. It was patented in 1831 and is signed by the President of the United States, Andrew Jackson. Also by the Secretary of State, Edward Livingston and by the Attorney General, Roger Taney. Taney went on to become the Chief Justice, the longest serving Chief Justice in the U.S. Supreme Court. In part of the story of these patents, these are the story of the technology and the infrastructure that was being built in the United States in the early days of the country. Every one of these patents talks about the year of the United States which was one thousand eight hundred and of the United States of America. It will say the number of years the United States will have been in existence. The patents were very important to the development of the competitiveness of the U.S. This patent over here – and each one of these is on parchment, which is actually the leather from the fetus of a sheep that’s how they made things they wanted to last at that time. They couldn’t make paper at that time that they could trust to last how long they wanted the patent to last. These were important documents. This is a patent for a pan and furnace for evaporating liquids. It is signed by James Monroe, as the President of the United States. This was in 1825. It was also signed by John Quincy Adams, as Secretary of State and by William Wirt, as Attorney General of the United States. They actually had a pony at the patent office. There were only about 2 people who worked in the patent office. And when they got a patent application they would send the man on the pony around to collect the signatures of the President, the Secretary of State, and the Attorney General. I’m Rich Beem. I’ve been telling you about the history of two of these old, original U.S. patents that are a part of my collection. I’m going to continue this story by talking about other items in the collection on the next video. Thank you for joining me!