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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...""
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
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 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
Ironically, British troops had attacked Washington DC 24 years earlier, burning nearly everything except those patents, which they very carefully avoided.
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.
After watching "Connections" on the Discovery channel, I always thought it would be cool if you could graph the references between research papers and also do the same for patents.
Vintage computer adverts: http://www.vintageadbrowser.com/computers-and-software-ads
Mmmm, several hundred year old consipracy. This is gonna drive 'em nuts for years... ;-)