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Some Of The Lost X-Patents Found
Jerry Browne writes "
The New York Times (reg req) is carrying
a story
about the recent discovery of some lost patents. Apparantly a fire at a
temporay storage site in July 1836 destroyed the first 10000 patents issued. From the article..."The
Patent and Trademark Office has issued nearly seven million patents; the
first 10,000 are known as the X-patents. They were issued from July 1790,
when the United States patent system was created under an order signed
by George Washington, to July 1836, when every one of them burned in a
fire...In the 168 years since the fire, only about 2,800 have been recovered....Until
this spring, that is, when two lawyers...a clue to several important patents
from the 1790's - including one from 1826 for the first internal combustion
engine...""
Reg-Free Link
Maybe this will invalidate some crazy patents that will now have expired.
Maybe some of the new tech patents will 'accidently' get burned.. we can only hope
Perhaps the solution to this madness of patenting algorithms, genes, etcetera... is to burn down the patent office again!
--
Don't like it? Respond with words, not karma.
Gee -- maybe they'll find prior art to cover all of SCO's claims???
10b||~10b -- aah, what a question!
More patents. Sheesh.
No backups? Amateurs!
one of the patents burned in the fire was the first internal sprinkler system...
I'm sure "SlashdotMedia" will improve on all the wonders that Dice Holdings blessed us all with
much more interesting if they found the missing episodes...
In other news, the first recorded original story on slashdot has been found.
:)
It has been carbon dated to within the mid 1830's.
It has been duped 4796 times since then.
I actually like these kind of outlandish irrelivent stories, must be a slow news day...
liqbase
Maybe some of the new tech patents will 'accidently' get burned.. we can only hope
Yes, but why just some? Why not all of them? That would solve all of our patent problems, don't you think?
maybe it'd be another Reichstag fire though? with MS, Disney et al. shouting "this is a communist conspiracy against intellectual property. We must demand all products be DRM'd"
shortly followed by CompilerNacht - the night of the broken compilers.
...included patent on a business method of "using silly patents for intimidation and extortion".
There should be consequences...
--
Perhaps correct spelling would be one of the possibilities?
All this time looking for a solution to the problems with the U.S. patent office and the solution was right in front of my face the whole time. Arson! How could I have missed that one?
The original fire was no doubt caused by early open-source advocates protesting against Babbage's patents on the Difference Engine!
With that in mind, if some of you OSS fellows fancy meeting me Arlington, Virginia for a re-enactment of this great event, be sure to bring matches, gasoline and plenty of firelighters.
I'm sure SCO will say that they have some smoking gun patent in there registered by Darl's great great great grandfather
---
We spoke for about a half an hour. I don't recall a thing we said. - Colorblind James Experience
The truth is out there. And it's already been patented.
i guess they didn't have off-site backups back then...
If 10,000 patents were all that were issued from 1790 to 1836 (40 years) and considering we are up to patent number 7,000,000 (approx) right now, it would be interesting to have a graph of patents granted over time from 1790 to the present. My guess is that it would be an exponential curve.
Rhymes that keep their secrets will unfold behind the clouds.There upon the rainbow is the answer to a neverending story
Why all the hoopla? Aren't they expired?
Also, the fact that everyone forgot about them 160+ years ago only means that they are even less worthwhile today.
Unless some desperate soul is anxious to hunker down for a fun Friday night of reading burnt, forgotten, and expired patents. ??
-- No sig for you!
just like a normal patent but with more cash?
<rimshot>
I guess the storage site was accurately named, if not spelled.
Anyway, for those who are thinking "could it happen today?"... Yes, and no.
Yes, in the sense that you can blast all magnetic media to hell or at least disrupt it with a suitable EM pulse.
No, in the sense that all important information is likely in an EM protected vault (hah! too expensive) and backed up to optical disks (hah! weakest link in the chain is the poorly paid worker).
So...
X-patents, eh? Sounds like the patent office is trying to jazz up their image to attract more young patent holders. Makes sense though, I heard they haven't been doing so well marketing to 18-25 year olds.
It's more XTREME!
What do these patents have to do with the X Prize?
P.S. NOBODY READS THE FUCKING NEW YORK TIMES!
There was once a requirement that patent applications be accompanied by a working model of the invention.
The patent office once stored thousands of these little gadgets.
When the requirement was lifted, the patent office cleared out the warehouse, and gave way the models.
As you can imagine, most were probably trashed . . . given to kids who destroyed them. The surviving specimens are hot collector's prizes.
I once visited a collector's house, while doing "Dead Media" research. He had a few models. Most were of really pedestrian things, like automated brick makers.
STefan
Of course the first US patent is the one for the time machine -- or at least it will be when it gets invented. (Insert shameless plug for Cheapass games here)
Sounds like something ESPN's marketing team would make up to say that Tony Hawk has on the 900 or Rodney Mullen has on the Dark Slide.
It's the sound of a million IP lawyers having an orgasm in unison.
- Seth
Cheapass Games has created a game about the struggle to file the first U.S. Patent.
Stefan
Of course it would. The population has grown exponentially, as has effectively every other non-ratio metric associated with our country. GDP has gone up exponentially, food consumption has gone up exponentially, the stock market...you get the idea.
A much more insightful study would be patents/person by year. I would imagine that this figure has also gone up, though likely not quite with an exponential dependence. Most interesting would be sharp jumps in this curve that one might associate with specific events, like WWII, certain presidents getting elected, new USPTO directors, and so on.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
Francois Issac de Rivaz built the first internal combustion engine in 1807.
Never realized how much our founding fathers were into Pr0n..
Ah yes,thats the patent I based my "internal cubustion engine, ON THE INTERNET" patent. Big bucks I tell you.
This doesn't matter. These patents would have expired a very long time ago.
Had this been copyright, it's a different story. Realistically, copyrights never expire anymore (thanks to Disney + Sonny Bono and our "Big Business First" congressional philosophy).
A slashdotter who didn't build his own computer is like a Jedi who didn't build his own lightsaber.
That should be revised to read "terrorist conspiracy". Get with the times, man!
My great-great-great-grandfather patented Hyperlinking, Rambus memory, and Unix back in the 1800's. I'll be setting up a paypal account shortly so you can pay.
I hope this helps to usher in the return of the working model requirement. As patents used to require a working model in order to be awarded, it surely would've been easier to figure out whose patent was which when the inventor actually had to have a working one! So long to all those hi-tech patents where the company merely drafted a requirements document and fired it off to the USPTO. Let's see you build one first! 10-20 million lines of code later, the hi-tech patent volume slides down a few more notches.
stuff |
"Until this spring, that is, when two lawyers... a clue"
OMG they... a clue? Great!
That reminds me, this morning, I... my breakfast.
Dear Slashdot: next time you want to mess with the site, add a rich-text editor for comments.
Does it matter at this point? Wont all of these patents have expired already? AFAIK all patents have the same lifespan.
I can see how they would be interesting from an academic/research point of view, but not much else.
They were issued from July 1790, when the United States patent system was created under an order signed by George Washington, to July 1836
10000 Patents in 43 years, That is a lot lower than the amount of patents issued nowadays. Perhaps the patent officers should take a cue from the old (dead) guys and be waaaaaaaay more stingy with patents that are granted. My bet is because they can't keep up with the amount of patents they pass more patents, so companies file for more patents.
Perhaps I'm wrong - maybe the internal combustion engine *was* discovered.
"Where did you say you heard those noises?"
"Just up here, around this bend in the cave"
"Wait! I hear it! What sort of infernal creature is it?"
"God save us, I think it is coming this way!"
"Hold the lantern higher and brace yourselves!"
.....
"Aww, it's just a baby! It's no danger to anyone!"
"Let us call it 'Infernal Combustion Engine'."
"We did find it in this cave, how about 'Internal Combustion Engine'?"
"Brilliant!"
"This discovery will bring peace and prosperity to all the peoples of the world!"
(cue evil Doom3 music)...
The article (more accurately, the patent agency spokeswoman quoted therein) makes the same semantic mistake that many do...the 1826 patent went to the man who INVENTED the internal combustion engine, not the man who DISCOVERED it. Invention and discovery are not synonymous and only semiliterate slobs use the words interchangeably.
Thank you; that is all.
Learn to spell: nickel, missile, lose, solely, amendment, speech, kernel, probably, ridiculous, deity, hierarchy, versus
And now the US office processes over 300,000 applications per year. Its cool, how much smarter we are now.
Xbox news should be posted to games.slashdot.org
Let's not forget that one can hate his government, but love his country.
Patent Number X-1: Potash Patent Number 1: Locomotive with good traction (1836) Link
"Why? Why did they avoid the patents office?"
The patent office had a patent on it.
...rubber fire hoses
My great great great grandfather patented patenting in patent No 1 it was recently recovered...so for each patent issued since I'm due a licencing fee...
Power Corrupts,Absolute Power Corrupts Absolutely, leaving one person(group)in charge is absolutely corrupt.
I thought they were gone forever...
"Hmm. I am to metaphor cheese as metaphor cheese is to transitive verb crackers!"
Many major city libraries - for instance, Los Angeles - have complete patent collections on microfilm. There are also internet-accessible records in numerous places. Practically speaking, it can't happen today.
Contribute to civilization: ari.aynrand.org/donate
If the editors can't even get it right (c'mon editors! dupes I can understand, but spellchecking is just an aspell away), how do you expect Slashdotters to spell properly.
Let 'em sue me, I'm keeping my indoor toilet
Does SCO own any of this intellectual property?
Conformity is the jailer of freedom and enemy of growth. -JFK
including one from 1826 for the first internal combustion engine...
Well, of course-- that would be the original SCO internal combustion engine, the principles of which have been stolen by every car on the planet!
Proud member of the Weirdo-American community.
NT
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
And a comparison to patents/company by year. I think that would show the real trend of patents.
My beliefs do not require that you agree with them.
Uh, the Nazis *did* bill the Reichstag Fire as a terrorist conspiracy, and a reason for extended police powers, and a reason for the nation to need to "stand together" and not criticize them.
There should be a term that refers to events like the Reichstag Fire and 9/11.
May we never see th
Prevention of dupes. Plus the obvious fact that one of the objects of the patent paradigm is that the "art" becomes available to the public upon expiration. Now if we could just get that no dupes part to apply to /.
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
"Do the Right Thing. It will gratify some people and astound the rest." - Mark Twain
I agree, but I think you can do better than a simple ratio, as I'd want to eliminate non-patenting companies (like farms), and patents not assigned to companies. - I'd look at:
the fraction of companies that pantented *anything* in a given year vs. time.
the fraction of patents assigned to companies (as opposed to individual inventors) vs. time
patents per employee at patenting companies vs. time
patents/yr vs. inflation-adjusted revenue/yr for each company in the fortune 500, and for all of the fortune 500 companies. Will show if the top companies are receiving more patents given their productivity
contested vs. assigned patents, by year of assignment. I'd love to see that!
I'd be surprised if someone hasn't looked into these things - if not, someone should.
-Looking for a job as a materials chemist or multivariat
There is a word for it: provocation.
"Until this spring, that is, when two lawyers... a clue"
OMG they... a clue? Great!
That reminds me, this morning, I... my breakfast.
What does
Found?
Ate?
Poured milk on?
Lost?
Fried?
Or does it mean something naughty? If that's the case I don't want to hear about what the lawyers did to the clue, or for that matter what you did to your breakfast. Eww.
I want to drag this out as long as possible. Bring me my protractor.
Allegory of the Cave
you ... your breakfast.?
./, most of us are geeks and pretty desperate, but there are limits, k .
... your breakfast)
:p)
Tell me you didn't do that. I mean, ok, we are here on
Try getting a dog (or perhaps a pig - whatever you prefer). I heared that can help (ok, it might still not be great, but better than
Or best of all - get a girlfriend - that should prevent the entire situation.
So again - please don't throw away your breakfast, just cuz it looks suspicious, either feed it to your pets or get a girlfriend who will make sure that you'll use the milk etc. before it reaches the best-until date.
(PS: Anybody who thought about something else here - shame on you
+++ MELON MELON MELON +++ Out of Cheese Error +++ redo from start +++
Rather than a model. Any inventor will have at least one and probably several working prototypes anyway, if you don't have one you're not exactly an inventor. No need for the patent office to hold the prototype, it's up to the inventor to maintain it while the patent is in effect.
Government of the people, by corporate executives, for corporate profits.
Finally, we can finally recover those lost plans to the Pig De-Greaser and the Rake Sharpener. Society is saved yet again by our forefathers.
...and that mod took it hook, line and s(t)inker. HAHA, you a winnar!
Put them in a meseum.
Right next to the patent system itself.
They both are SO last millennium...
Privacy is terrorism.
What's the official word on Goodwin's Law in regards to a /. post?
100% Crunchier
Darl is just salivating at the opportunity to buy out whoever patented the internal combustion engine.
Next year at SCOForum, they'll announce their name change to that of the patent holder (Inc., of course) with the new tag-line, "Powering your cars for almost 200 years."
Then the lawsuits begin. First up? Well, Autozone and Daimler-Chrysler, of course!
I wonder how many of these patents were used in the old TV show "Wild Wild West?"
Just what we need revenge of the patent lawyers...from the grave.
(hopefully) that discussions should not be reduced to a set of childish rules.
As a certified attorney in Godwin's Law, I can say that the comparison is germane and letigitimate. The events were similar in effect.
However, if the comparison were gratitous, then Godwin's Law would need to be enforced.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
*sigh*
Godwin's Law is not meant to be invoked. It's merely an observation: "As a Usenet discussion grows longer, the probability of a comparison involving Nazis or Hitler approaches one."
I believe it should be seen like Moore's law - merely the result of the observation of a trend, but not set in stone and impossible to enforce in any meaningful manner.
The first patent probably reads something like:
Frist Patent
------------
i got teh frist patnet. i w00t lolz.
[insert gnaa troll here]
I can smell a new X-Files spinoff called The X-Patents where Sculder and Mully investigate long lost patents and find the evil people breaking them :D
One of the requirements of early patents was to produce a working model of the patented item. These models were often made of wood, and contributed to the fire when the office burnt.
If you want to better patents, make people supply a working model. I'm quite sure alot of patents would not be granted or would be shown to to prior art.
... several important patents from the 1790's - including one from 1826 ...
Uh, 1826 is not in the 1790s.
Bye!
SeqBox
Magnetic Ring, Chiu 5,989,178
November 23, 1999
A magnetic ring adapted to be worn on the little finger of the hand. The magnetic ring includes a ring and a pair of permanent magnets that extend from the ring. When the magnetic ring is worn on the little finger of the right hand, the pair of permanent magnets are oriented on the top and bottom, respectively, of the little finger, with the South pole of the magnet that is oriented on the top of the little finger generally contacting the top of the little finger, with the North pole of the magnet that is oriented on the top of the little finger in opposition thereto, with the North pole of the magnet that is oriented on the bottom of the little finger generally contacting the bottom of the little finger, and with the South pole of the magnet that is oriented on the bottom of the little finger in opposition thereto. When the magnetic ring is worn on the little finger of the left hand, the position of the polarities of the pair of permanent magnets are reversed from that of the right hand. The magnetic ring can also be made to fit around all the fingers of the hand and all the toes of the foot.
I suggest you read Slashdot
Just so you can read the article found a handy mozilla extension http://extensions.roachfiend.com/ third one down called bug me not, signs you into annoying sites that require registration with a large database of usernames....
Enough advertising now... Bye bye karma
...those x files
the truth about patents is out there somewhere.
Quite true. However, one cannot deny the collary about ending the discussion that has since been appended to Godwin's.
I belive that the collary was the point that the great-grandparent post was refering to. It usually gets lumped in to Godwin's, even though not really a part of the law. As for enforcement of the collary, it's really up to those that control the thread. However, my interpreteation is that the thread should stand.
Haec merda tauri est. Ceterum censeo Carthaginem esse delendam.
"fetting down wordf and ideaf in corporeal form"!
Y'all owe me one feptillion dollarf...
Give a man a fish and you have fed him for today. Teach a man to fish, and he'll say "WHERE'S MY FISH, YOU IDIOT?"
ActiveX, DirectX and of course the Xbox.
<rimshot>
"Can there be a Klein bottle that is an efficient and effective beer pitcher?"
get a girlfriend who will make sure that you'll use the milk etc. before it reaches the best-until date
That doesn't quite work.
Last month, my wife (former GF) decided that she'd be extra nice to me, and started making me breakfast (porridge). Last week, I was very sick when I got to work, and I couldn't understand why (you can see where this is going, right?).. the dog woke me up early on Friday morning, and I decided to start making my own.. I poured the milk into the bowl, and was greeted with an awful stench.. the milk had expired last saturday.
The original requirement for a patent model allowed for a maximum volume of one cubic foot, measured on all faces as the limit in model size. I am sure that originally, that seemed reasonable enough. Still, it became quite evident as the Patent Office was busy turning into a massive filing system of 12 inch by 12 inch by 12 inch models that this was a nightmare in progress, reminiscent of the final scene in Raiders of the Lost Arc wherein an item is carted off into an endless warehouse. The models themselves vary from small individual components to astonishing miniaturized versions of large machinery to full size examples of individual products. The materials vary from wood, to machined metals to amazing works done in tin. Around 1890, the cubic foot rule had become unworkable and the models were no longer accepted. After allowing the Smithsonian to pick and choose from among the models, the remainder were scrapped. From among these, a small fraction have survived and reside in museums and collections. Some of these are sufficiently interesting as to serve as the centerpieces of collections. While the models themselves may be more of museum pieces, than educational, which could be debated either way, the documentation of the evolution of patents and how they build one each upon the others that have cut the path before them is of historical and technical interest.
Politico-criminals would never do that today. They send anthrax now.
Hmmm... When was the "Patriot Act" passed? When was the anthrax sent?
They did, they had just been patented:
Patent #9999: System and Method for preserving data in case of catastrophe...
Of course, the company who filed it was charging too much for the PTO to pay and they decided to wait until the patent expired to implement it.
shameless plug for my lab. Here is a link to a poster (pdf - warning large file) that disccusses some of the growth statistics of patents and patent classes.
No, unfortunately, the patent office was not housed in the WTC...
It appears that every time more copyrights are in danger of expiring, minions of Disney in congress will act to extend them again.
It also appears that in Eldred v. Ashcroft, the Supreme Court let the copyright term extensions of 1976 and 1998 slide but hinted strongly that it would overturn a third successive extension.
Maybe we should federally fund the patent system instead of having there be a fee for applications and maintainance of patent?
The problem here is that the Congress has laid what amounts to a tax on patent filing fees, with the proceeds going to the general use of the federal government. If the Congress stopped taxing these, the USPTO could probably hire the examiners it needs to do a just job on each patent.
The LPF has mentioned a cartoon about the U.S. Patent Office. The cartoon shows a military aircraft carrying a black monolith (as in 2001: A Space Odyssey) towards the USPTO building. The "sorely needed" delivery is being done by "two geeks."
"only about 2,800 have been recovered....Until this spring, that is, when two lawyers...a clue to several important patents from the 1790's - including one from 1826 for the first internal combustion engine..."
What? You didn't finish the thought. That quote doesn't make sense!
Coder's Stone: The programming language quick ref for iPad
Often wondered: could snapping one's fingers to attract the attention of a shop assistant be considered prior art to the one-click shopping patent?
finding out how many of those x-patents are infringed by Linux.
...the flux capacitor? Doc's gonna be mad if they haven't!
These posts express my own personal views, not those of my employer
> However, my interpreteation is that the thread
:)
> should stand.
Nazi!
Codifex Maximus ~ In search of... a shorter sig.
The mention of one for the internal combustion engine makes me wonder...didn't Henry T Ford stick his middle finger up at patents?
Only the patent must have expired some 70+ years before the T-Ford.
I'm always very annoyed by comparisons of anything with the Nazis. As there is *nothing* that can be compared with it. I'm from Germany and I'm very afraid that soon those comparisons that try to cover the responsibility of the Germans will be normal. Well: "No historical backspin!"
Anyways, the Nazis burned the Reichstag themselfs and most of the photos of it where faked. So no comparison here anyway.