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...""

Comments

Burned

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe some of the new tech patents will 'accidently' get burned.. we can only hope

Re:Burned

[RLW]

Don't forget to burn everyone who filed one of these insipid patents written in bombastic pseudo techno/legalese.

Build a fire for a patent lawyer and keep him warm for a day.
Set a patent lawyer on fire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.

Re:Burned

[Demonspawn]

Actually, works better phrased this way:

Set a patent lawyer a fire and keep him warm for a day.
Set a patent lawyer afire and keep him warm for the rest of his life.

Extremly humorous that your post is moded 'flamebait' tho ;)

--Demonspawn

Re:Burned

[ChairmanMeow]

No, there's prior art for that from 1836.

Hmmm. Is that the solution?

[FFFish]

Perhaps the solution to this madness of patenting algorithms, genes, etcetera... is to burn down the patent office again!

Prior Art?

[forsetti]

Gee -- maybe they'll find prior art to cover all of SCO's claims???

What

[Anonymous Coward]

No backups? Amateurs!

Ironically

[Megaweapon]

one of the patents burned in the fire was the first internal sprinkler system...

Re:Ironically

[Fascist Christ]

FTA: "... all its records were lost when a fire gutted the building where the patents were being stored temporarily while a more modern, fireproof headquarters was under construction. There was a fire station right next door ..."

Re:Ironically

[afidel]

It was a long term goal of slowing the US by encouraging us to embroil ourselves in silly patent litigation. It was dreamed up by the great, great, great, great, etc grandfather of Harry Seldon.

X-reposts

[LiquidCoooled]

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... :)

Re:Hmmm. Is that the solution?

[rokzy]

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.

Newly discovered patents from 1790

[1gor]

...included patent on a business method of "using silly patents for intimidation and extortion".

There should be consequences...

Of course!

[iamdrscience]

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?

Re:Of course!

[rokzy]

or in other words "I recommend fire. And lots of it."

Patent Office Arson...

[Ianoo]

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.

Just waiting to hear Darl

[not_a_product_id]

I'm sure SCO will say that they have some smoking gun patent in there registered by Darl's great great great grandfather

X-patents?

[Anonymous Coward]

The truth is out there. And it's already been patented.

X-patents?

[iamdrscience]

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.

US Patent Number 1

[drphil]

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)

Re:Hmmm. Is that the solution?

[Anonymous Coward]

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"

You mean they were supposed to wait for a fire?

ah yes...

[SQLz]

....including one from 1826 for the first internal combustion engine..

Ah yes,thats the patent I based my "internal cubustion engine, ON THE INTERNET" patent. Big bucks I tell you.

Pay up!

[Stonent1]

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.

also...

[sootman]

"Until this spring, that is, when two lawyers... a clue"

OMG they... a clue? Great!

That reminds me, this morning, I... my breakfast.

Patent Office Spokesperson

[teamhasnoi]

Ms. Quinn describes him as the inventor "who arguably discovered the first internal combustion engine." You'd think that someone who is the spokeperson for the Patent Office would know the difference between discovered and invented. Or maybe not.

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)...

Patent #10001

[jimand]

...rubber fire hoses

Re:What is the distribution pattern

[bugnuts]

An early inventor probably sent out something like

"Hello, my name is Benjamin Franklin and I am an inventor. I used to have no patents and no respect as a scientist, but today I have over 500 patents including the Franklin Stove and the Electric Kite! Follow these instructions exactly and in 200 years, you'll have nearly 6 MILLION patents in your name!

1: Copy this letter 10 times and add your name to the top as a co-inventor
2: Make a unique modification to the invention at the bottom
3: Submit that to the patent office and send this letter to 10 friends

In 200 years we will have over 6,000,000 patents!"

The government obviously had to stop this somehow, and make it look like an accident.

#5,989,178: Immortality Device

[Hao Wu]

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.

So that's what happed to my ancestor's patent for

[wsanders]

"fetting down wordf and ideaf in corporeal form"!

Y'all owe me one feptillion dollarf...