The X-Patents are all the patents issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office from July 1790 (when the first U.S. patent was issued), to July 1836. The actual number is unknown, but the best estimate is 9,957. The records were burned in a fire, in December 1836, while in temporary storage. No copies or rosters were maintained by the government at the time, leaving only the inventors' copies to reconstruct the collection.
The Patent Commission of the U.S. was created in 1790. Its first three members were Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of War Henry Knox, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph.
On July 31, 1790, inventor Samuel Hopkins of Pittsford, Vermont became the first person to be issued a patent in the United States. His patented invention was an improvement in the "making of Pot Ash by a new apparatus & process." The earliest patent law required that a working model of each invention be produced in miniature.
The Patent Law was revised for the first time in 1793. It adopted a simple registration system where a patent would be granted for a $30 fee. The Patent Board was replaced by a clerk in the Department of State. James Madison, Secretary of State, created a separate Patent Office within the State Department and he appointed Dr. William Thornton as its first superintendent in May 1802.
The Patent Office was the only major government building to survive the British invasion of Washington, D.C., during the War of 1812. This is credited to Dr. William Thornton who was building a musical instrument in the same building. He persuaded British officers that they would be destroying the shared intellectual record of mankind if the patents were burned. [1]
The Patent Office 1836 fire occurred on December 15 when the patents were in temporary storage while a new (more fireproof) facility was being built.
The United States Congress immediately passed a law to aid re-issuing of the missing patents after the fire. About 2,800 such patents have been recovered, [2] and 1,989 are online.
Up until five months prior to the fire, U.S. patents had not been numbered, and were identified by titles and dates. The first patent denoted with the serial numbering system still in use today was issued on July 13, 1836, and was given the number 1. [3] The recovered patents are also numbered from 1, but these numbers have an "X" added to them. The X is generally added to the end of the number except for the first patent which has the X in the beginning of the number. Therefore, they are called X-Patents.
When an earlier patent was recovered and re-issued, the USPTO sometimes gave it a fractional number (e.g. 2960½X, issued on June 2, 1818; 8736¾X, issued on March 27, 1835) to preserve the correct sequence. Most, but not all, fractional patents are X-Patents.
The latest X-Patents were recovered in 2004 from the Dartmouth College archives. [4] Of the 14 found, 10 were granted to Samuel Morey including the first known patent for an internal combustion engine.
| Patent | Invention | Inventor | Date | Link | Notes |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|
| X1 | Potash production | Samuel Hopkins | July 31, 1790 | U.S. Patent X1 | First U.S. patent |
| X72 | Cotton Gin | Eli Whitney | March 14, 1794 | U.S. Patent X72 | Revolutionized cotton farming and textiles industry |
| X4378 | Gas Or Vapor Engine | Samuel Morey | April 1, 1826 | U.S. Patent X4378 | |
| X9000 | Grate | N. Winslow | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9000 | |
| X9430 | Improvement in Fire-Arms | Samuel Colt | February 25, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9430 | A key patent in revolver history |
| X9899 | Brick Machine | C. Waterman | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9899 | |
| X9894 | Plow Moldboard | I. Snider | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9894 | |
| X9893 | Lock | A. Roff | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9893 | |
| X9890 | Thrashing Mach. | A. Parson | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9890 | |
| X9889 | Cook Stove | W. Parmalee | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9889 | |
| X9887 | Plow | T. Miller | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9887 | |
| X9886 | Dressing Stares | C. McGregory | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9886 | |
| X9885 | Cotton Gin | J. McCreight | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9885 | |
| X9884 | Door Lock | J. Mo Clory | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9884 | |
| X9882 | Clover Huller | W. Loomis | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9882 | |
| X9879 | Feather Dresser | F.P.Knowlton | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9879 | |
| X9878 | Platform Balance | J. Horton | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9878 | |
| X9877 | Nail Extractor | R. Haynes | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9877 | |
| X9876 | Cotton Press | H.G. Guyon | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9876 | |
| X9875 | Cook Stove | C. Granger | July 2, 1836 | U.S. Patent X9875 | |
The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alexandria, Virginia, after a 2005 move from the Crystal City area of neighboring Arlington, Virginia.
A patent model was a handmade miniature model no larger than 12" by 12" by 12" that showed how an invention works. It was one of the most interesting early features of the United States patent system.
A patent examiner is an employee, usually a civil servant with a scientific or engineering background, working at a patent office. Major employers of patent examiners are the European Patent Office (EPO), the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), the Japan Patent Office (JPO), and other patent offices around the world.
John Ruggles was an American politician from the U.S. state of Maine. He served in several important state legislative and judicial positions before serving in the U.S. Senate.
Samuel Hopkins was an American inventor from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, On July 31, 1790, he was granted the first U.S. patent, under the new U.S. patent statute just signed into law by President Washington on April 10, 1790. Hopkins had petitioned for a patent on an improvement "in the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process."
Business method patents are a class of patents which disclose and claim new methods of doing business. This includes new types of e-commerce, insurance, banking and tax compliance etc. Business method patents are a relatively new species of patent and there have been several reviews investigating the appropriateness of patenting business methods. Nonetheless, they have become important assets for both independent inventors and major corporations.
The history of patents and patent law is generally considered to have started with the Venetian Statute of 1474.
Under United States law, a patent is a right granted to the inventor of a (1) process, machine, article of manufacture, or composition of matter, (2) that is new, useful, and non-obvious. A patent is the right to exclude others, for a limited time from profiting of a patented technology without the consent of the patent-holder. Specifically, it is the right to exclude others from: making, using, selling, offering for sale, importing, inducing others to infringe, applying for an FDA approval, and/or offering a product specially adapted for practice of the patent.
In United States patent law, a reexamination is a process whereby anyone—third party or inventor—can have a U.S. patent reexamined by a patent examiner to verify that the subject matter it claims is patentable. To have a patent reexamined, an interested party must submit prior art, in the form of patents or printed publications, that raises a "substantial new question of patentability". The Leahy-Smith America Invents Act makes substantial changes to the U.S. patent system, including new mechanisms for challenging patents at the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. One of the new mechanisms is a post-grant review proceeding, which will provide patent challengers expanded bases on which to attack patents.
A patent application is a request pending at a patent office for the grant of a patent for an invention described in the patent specification and a set of one or more claims stated in a formal document, including necessary official forms and related correspondence. It is the combination of the document and its processing within the administrative and legal framework of the patent office.
Jonathan Ward "Jon" Dudas, born July 5, 1968, is the senior vice president, senior associate to the president and secretary of the University of Arizona. He previously served as Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) until January 18, 2009. He was nominated to the position by former President George W. Bush in March 2004 and appointed in July 2004. Dudas previously served as acting Under Secretary and Director, and Deputy Under Secretary and Deputy Director from 2002 to 2004. He is also a member of the board of directors of Conversant Intellectual Property Management.
A timeline of United States inventions encompasses the ingenuity and innovative advancements of the United States within a historical context, dating from the Contemporary era to the present day, which have been achieved by inventors who are either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Patent protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:
To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries.
A patent caveat, often shortened to caveat, was a legal document filed with the United States Patent Office.
The Patent Act of 1790 was the first patent statute passed by the federal government of the United States. It was enacted on April 10, 1790, about one year after the constitution was ratified and a new government was organized. The law was concise, defining the subject matter of a U.S. patent as "any useful art, manufacture, engine, machine, or device, or any improvement there on not before known or used." It granted the applicant the "sole and exclusive right and liberty of making, constructing, using and vending to others to be used" of his invention.
The history of United States patent law started even before the U.S. Constitution was adopted, with some state-specific patent laws. The history spans over more than three centuries.
A patent application or patent may contain drawings, also called patent drawings, illustrating the invention, some of its embodiments, or the prior art. The drawings may be required by the law to be in a particular form, and the requirements may vary depending on the jurisdiction.
The 1836 U.S. Patent Office fire was the first of two major fires the U.S. Patent Office has had in its history. It occurred in Blodget's Hotel building, Washington on December 15, 1836. An initial investigation considered the possibility of arson due to suspected corruption in the Post Office, which shared the same building, but it was later ruled out. The cause was ultimately determined to be accidental. The fire is considered to be a unique point in the historical events of the Patent Office that caused policy changes.
Teresa Stanek Rea is the former Acting Under Secretary of Commerce for Intellectual Property and former Acting Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO).
The following outline is provided as an overview of and topical guide to patents: