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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 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
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.
Historical value? Just because you can't find any use for them doesn't mean they're not valuable to some random historian researching early industry or something...
Historical reference. There are patents today which refer to older patents, which refer to still older patents, etc. Sometimes it's interesting to trace the developments of current ideas from their initial inspirations.
You can never go home again... but I guess you can shop there.
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.
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
Ah yes,thats the patent I based my "internal cubustion engine, ON THE INTERNET" patent. Big bucks I tell you.
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.
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)...
...rubber fire hoses
Why all the hoopla? Aren't they expired?
Maybe because you don't want a second patent issued for the same thing.
Methinks you forget the entire *point* of a patent system.
The patent system exists so that inventors have an incentive to disclose their inventions to the public. This is so that others can use the invention once the patent expires, and the idea doesn't just sit in some forgotten vault.
The value of a patent to the country as a whole lies not in the time that the patent is valid, but after it expires, when it is freely availible to all for use.
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
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
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.
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
(hopefully) that discussions should not be reduced to a set of childish rules.
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
Except for the fact that (as many believe) the Nazis started the fire to strengthen their position.
"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?"
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.
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.