The Sewing Machine War

lousyd writes "Volokh has hosted a paper by George Mason University law professor Adam Mossoff on the patent fracas a century and a half ago surrounding the sewing machine. A Stitch in Time: The Rise and Fall of the Sewing Machine Patent Thicket challenges assumptions by courts and scholars today about the alleged efficiency-choking complexities of the modern patent system. Mossoff says that complementary inventions, extensive patent litigation, so-called 'patent trolls,' patent thickets, and privately formed patent pools have long been features of the American patent system reaching back to the antebellum era."

Comments

The Secret of Singer's success was...

[GuyFawkes]

two fold...

neither reason had anything to do with how good the machines were, Singer failed miserably to make it a viable business until he took a lawyer on board, and the two unique business methods were implemented.

1/ Singer sewing machines introduced the idea of buying a sewing machine on credit, and pushed this as the preferred way to purchase.

2/ The list price of each machine was extremely high, but you got a huge discount for trading in your old machine.

What this means was that everyone traded in, they would even buy an old used machine specifically to trade it in... Singer scrapped every single machine that was traded in.

So on the one hand they were the only company who offered easy credit, and on the other hand they were wiping out the market of competing marques as second hand machines.

From a business perspective, brilliant.