BLAZING EARLY HISTORY OF THE U.S. PATENT OFFICE: FEATURING

DR. THORNTON’S FIERY

SPEECH TO THE REDCOATS, AND THE GREAT CONFLAGRATIONS OF THE 1800s

IRA COHEN, B.A., J.D., LL.M.

This is Part Two of The Blazing History of the U.S. Patent Office. To read the introduction, see Part One in the print or digital edition of the Spring 2023 issue of The Federal Lawyer

The First Great Patent Office Fire (of 1814): We Didn’t Start the Fire; 1814: The Redcoats Burn Washington, D.C.

“We didn’t start the fire; It was always burning since the world’s been turning. We didn’t start the fire; No, we didn’t light it, but we tried to fight it.”1

The War of 1812 (1812–1815) was a 19th-century military conflict fought between the United States and Great Britain over British violations of U.S. maritime rights. During the war, which was fomented by British restrictions on U.S. trade and America’s desire to expand its territory, the Americans took on the then-greatest naval power in the world, Great Britain. After three years, the hostilities concluded with the exchange of ratifications of the Treaty of Ghent.

The earliest instance of a fire that would go on to plague the history of the Patent Office materialized in 1814. In the summer of that year, the First Great Fire threatened the Patent Office. Due to the facts and circumstances explained below, it turned out to be the fire that never was, and the Patent Office only narrowly escaped being fed to the flames.

During the relatively short-lived conflict, following the battle of Bladensburg on Aug. 24, 1814, our nation’s governmental heart and soul, Washington, was invaded and occupied by a foreign nation, for the first, and only, time since the American Revolution. To be sure, it was a hellish day or two for the capitol district. Virtually all the major government buildings in Washington, D.C. were either blown up or burned down to the ground. Not even the Capitol2 or the White House avoided a fiery fate. Indeed, only one governmental edifice was spared, to wit, the U.S. Patent Office.3

By all accounts, the federal government, the American people, and posterity have just one person to thank for the structure’s salvation, good old Dr. Thornton. As the Redcoat troops swarmed into Washington on Aug. 24, 1814, they began to burn all of the public buildings.4 As Carl Jung reportedly observed: “The difference between a good life and a bad life is how well you walk through the fire.” Dr. Thornton both walked the walk and talked the talk. There are several versions and accounts of Thornton’s heroics on that fateful summer day, some more colorful and dramatic than others. All appear to be in accord, however, that he had single-handedly saved the Patent Office.5

As the soldiers were preparing to put the structure to the torch, Dr. Thornton made a passionate plea to several different British officers. His “Hail Mary” pitch not to burn the building, the “Blodgett’s Hotel” and, thus, to save the hundreds of inventors’ models and papers stored at the Patent Office, miraculously worked. Supposedly, he told the attackers that destroying this evidence of human ingenuity would be equivalent to the infamous burning of the great library of ancient fame in Alexandria and, moreover, would tar the British for generations to come. In one account, Thornton precariously placed himself between the British canons and the building’s façade. Thankfully, Thornton did not end up as His Majesty’s royal cannon fodder; cooler heads prevailed, and after meetings with several British officers, Thornton’s moxie and eloquent intervention finally secured the Brits’ promise that the Patent Office would be spared. The British officers and gentlemen, thankfully, were good to their word.

More fortunately, the British invasion and occupation of Washington was an exceedingly short-lived event. As a matter of objective fact, it lasted only about 26 hours.6 After the Redcoats botched the demolition of an abandoned American fort, and somehow managed to blow up or maim about 75 of their soldiers, Mother Nature finished the British off. Seemingly out of nowhere, the rain and the wind ratcheted up to major storm strength; the aptly named “Hurricane of Providence” sent the English troops, under Major General Robert Ross, packing and into retreat, as they high-padded it back to their naval vessels and promptly sailed away from Washington, D.C.7

It was, therefore, a lucky circumstance for the federal government that Blodgett’s Hotel, the home of the Patent Office, remained standing. That is because the U.S. Congress now was in dire need of a temporary home and, so, thereafter met in the hotel for about a year, while the Capitol building was being reconstructed.

Back in 1810, when Congress had authorized the purchase of the unfinished Blodgett’s Hotel from its builder to house the Patent Office and the Post Office, it installed a new, slate roof, not to mention a fire station and fire engine too. Despite those efforts, and well-meaning intentions, much later events would prove too hot to handle.

Time, as it always does, marched on. In 1821, Thomas Jennings received U.S. Patent No. 3,306X for “Dry Scouring,” a precursor to dry cleaning. Notably, Jennings was the first known African American inventor to receive a U.S. patent (although no copy of this particular patent is known to exist).

In the meantime, during 1824, American lawyer and stateman, Daniel Webster (1782–1852), in a stirring speech to Congress, declared that invention is the fruit of a man’s brain, that industries grow in proportion to invention, and that therefore the government must aid progress by fostering the inventive genius of its citizens. Webster, then a U.S. Congressman, thus echoed views similar to those of the patent system held by founding fathers Washington, Jefferson, Hamilton, Madison, and Franklin. “The right of an inventor to his invention is no monopoly—in any other sense than a man’s house is a monopoly,” observed Webster.

Patents were, of course, not solely restricted to men. On Feb. 3, 1831, Emma Steinhauer was granted patent No. 6,362X, for her newly invented cooking stove. This patent is thought to be the first U.S. patent ever granted to a woman inventor for which a known copy still exists.8 (Note: there is no known connection between her cylindrical, sheet iron stove and the Second Great Patent Office Fire of 1836.)

In 1834, a Virginian inventor named Cyrus McCormick secured a patent for his agricultural grain reaper.9 The Patent Office had come a long way between 1790 and 1836. From a trickling trio of patents during that first year, by 1836, nearly 10,000 patents had been granted.

1836 and The Patent Act of 1836

With the calendar turning the pages to bid welcome to the year

1836, an eventful 12 months ensued. The President at that time was Andrew Jackson (1767–1845), who held office from 1829–1837.

The Battle of the Alamo raged down in Texas from February 23–March 6. What is more, on March 2, Texas declared its independence from Mexico. Later, on April 20, 1836, the U.S. Congress passed an act creating the Wisconsin Territory. Still later, on June 15, Arkansas was admitted as the 25th U.S. state.

On the patent front, on Feb. 25, 1836, legendary pioneering gunsmith Samuel Colt received a U.S. patent for his eponymous revolver, the first practical adaptation of the revolving flintlock pistol, commonly known and referred to as the Six Shooter.10 Then, on Independence Day of that year, the Patent Act of 1836 was enacted, which completely rewrote American patent law. Senator John Ruggles (Maine, 1789–1874) was the law’s creator, aided by Mr. Charles Keller, the latter of whom, on July 5th, became the first person to hold the first official title of Patent Examiner.

Less than a month earlier, on June 29, 1836, Keller, the Patent Office machinist, had been granted his very own patent11 for making staves.12 (His patent is available for viewing in USPTO’s electronic system.) While working as a Patent Examiner, Keller also studied law at night and, so, by May of 1845, he bid adieu to the Patent Office in order to enter the private practice of law, thus beginning a long-standing tradition of patent examiners.

In the confines of that same year, on July 4, 1836, the Patent Office became a separate organization within the Department of State (see 5 Stat. 117), and Henry Leavitt Ellsworth (1791–1858) became the First Commissioner of Patents. Ellsworth, who haled from Windsor, Connecticut, was the Yale-educated lawyer-son of Oliver Ellsworth, this country’s Third Chief Justice of the U.S. Supreme Court.13 As Commissioner of Patents, a position he held for a decade (1835–1845), he was the first federal official to collect agricultural information for the benefit of the farmers; later, Ellsworth would have bestowed upon him the moniker of the “Father of the Department of Agriculture.”

Commissioner Ellsworth, in his 1843 report to Congress (opining about the increasing workload at his office, mused: “The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end.”14

Finally, also on July 4, 1836, a law enacted on the same day as the important Patent Act, provided for the erection of a new (supposedly) fireproof building for the Patent Office. Miniature models of the inventions also became required when applying for a patent. Appeals were now allowed. A few days later, on July 11th, the Letters Patent numbers were reset, and U.S. Patent No. 1 was granted to Senator Ruggles, the law’s author, after the filing of the 9,957 prior, unnumbered patents.15 Senator Ruggles’ new and useful invention was a type of traction train wheel for locomotive trains designed to reduce the adverse effects of the weather on the train track.

An 1837 amendment required two copies of the patent to be submitted to the Patent Office; one was cautiously guarded at the U.S. Patent Office, while the second copy duly was returned to the Applicant (a practice which ended in 1870 when the Patent Office would begin to print copies of all patents submitted).

In any event, the federal government knew it needed to safeguard the voluminous piles of papers and the patent models. It ought to be borne firmly in mind that, up until July of 1836, about five months before the fire, all U.S. patents were not numbered; they were merely identified by the inventors’ (patentees’) names and the dates of issuance.

The Second Great Patent Office (of 1836)

What was sorely needed was a new, fire-resistant building to protect the patent archives. The files were placed in temporary storage. What happened next? Murphy’s Law took over; and it was not very long before a blazing inferno ensued!

At three in the morning on Dec. 15, 1836,16 virtually the entire patent office and library were lost to a raging fire. One solitary volume was spared incineration (and only because an employee had taken the book home without permission to do so). The old building was gutted, and all the approximately 10,000 patents, as well as several thousand related patent models, were irretrievably destroyed. The lost items included 168 folio volumes of old records, 26 large folios, 9,000 drawings, and 7,000 lost models.17

At one point, arson was suspected by official investigators, and the fingers were pointing at the U.S. Post Office which had been rumored to be a hotbed of corruption. Ultimately, however, the building’s blazing burial was ruled due to accidental causes. Apparently, the Patent Office employees had stored their firewood in the building’s basement, while their co-tenant U.S. Post Office workers had disposed of the smoldering ashes from their own fires right nearby. As they say, and it is not rocket science: Wood and burning ashes make for a very combustible combination.18

In that manner, Blodgett’s Hotel was burned to the ground. Wood was returned to its carbonized elements, and the piles of papers had been reduced to piles of ashes. What is ironic about the situation is that there was a nearby Fire Department Station. However, faulty equipment, lack of personnel, a 16-year-old leather fire hose, and the wintry freeze clogging up the water pumps, combined to thwart all efforts to battle the blaze; the efforts of the hastily raised bucket brigade were futile.19

The Aftermath of the 1836 Patent Office Fire.

Through the haze of the smoky morning air, it had become clear that three decades’ worth of records and models were gone; what the British had, in answer to Thornton’s valiant pleas, spared, now had been unceremoniously cremated. Still, a minor miracle did occur; the original Declaration of Independence, which previously had been on display in Blodgett’s Hotel, had been moved to the State Department just prior to the ides of December. There was some slight serendipity after all.

As alluded to above, prior to the Patent Act of July 4, 1836, patents had been issued by the name of the patentee and the date of the patent, rather than by any assigned numerical designation. The Patent Office had already issued nearly 10,000 patents by the time the great fire destroyed many of the original records in the winter of 1836.

As we have seen, the earliest American patents were issued by the Patent Office from 1790 to July 1836. By the latter date, an estimated 9,957 patents already had been issued. Regrettably, when the Patent Office burned down on Dec. 15th, it had neither copies nor any roster of any of the patent documents or grants. It was, in short, a total loss.

As a direct result of the fire of 1836, the Patent Office changed its record-keeping system, assigned numbers to the Letters Patent, and further required multiple copies of the patent applications and supporting documents. Today, we generally refer to the numerous patents which went up in smoke in the great fire of 1836 as the “X-Patents.” Most have been lost for all time. Nevertheless, scholars and historians do have a barebones record of the archival contents.

Thus, we have a fair idea about early American exceptionalism and inventiveness.

Congress wasted little time before it passed a law to aid and assist in the re-issuance of the missing patents. By resorting to private (i.e., inventors’) copies, the government eventually was able to recover about 2,800 patents; today, there are almost 2,000 of such patents available for online inspection.20 That still leaves about 7,000 patents that are missing-in-action.

Subsequently, by resorting to the use of the aforesaid inventors’ copies, the Patent Office was able to restore 2,845 patents. The restored records then were issued a number beginning with an “X” and, thereafter, referred to collectively as the “X-Patents.”21 In that manner, the first patent ever issued was designated patent “X1.” Those patents that could not be restored were later canceled. As to the older patents, one adds the prefix “X” for No. 1 (i.e., X1); add the suffix “X” for the remainder of the X-Patent cache (i.e., 2X, 3 X, etc.).

In certain special circumstances, if an early patent was recovered and re-issued, the Patent Office sometimes labeled it with a fractional number in a bid to preserve the numerical sequence (e.g., 2960 1.2X, issued June 2, 1818). In that vein, most, but not all, re-issued patents are X-patents.22

The search for more X-Patents remains an ongoing quest. One of the most recent discoveries relating to the universe of X-Patents took place at Dartmouth’s College Archives wherein 14 X-Patents were unearthed. Ten of those Letters Patent had been granted to the same American inventor, Samuel Morey, who had worked on internal combustion engines, and was a pioneer in steamships.23 Morey would go on to collect no less than 20 patents during his lifetime.

By way of summary, the first 10 U.S. X-Patents granted were as follows:

Pat X1; Inventor: Samuel Hopkins; Place: Pittsford, VT

Invention: the making of potash and pearl ash by new apparatus and process; Year of Grant: 1790.

Pat 2X; Inventor: Joseph Sampson; Place: Boston, MA; Invention: manufacture of candles;

Year of Grant: 1790.

Pat 3X; Inventor: Oliver Evans; Place: Philadelphia, PA; Invention: automated flour mill;

Year of Grant: 1790.

Pat 4X; Inventor: Frances Bailey; Place: Philadelphia, PA; Invention: punches for type;

Year of Grant: 1791.24

Pat 5X; Inventor: Aaron Putnam; Invention: improved distilling process;

Year of Grant: 1791.25

Pat 6X; Inventor: John Stone; Place: MA; Invention: pile driver for bridge building;

Year of Grant: 1791 (March 10).

Pats 7X–10X; Inventor: Samuel Milliken; Place: Philadelphia, PA

Inventions:

7X: machine for threshing grain and corn

8X: breaking of hemp

9X: cutting and polishing marble

10X: raising a nap on cloths

As for the later X-Patents, a few of the more notable ones are as follows:

72X: Eli Whitney, Cotton Gin,26 March 14, 1794, Whitney, a Yale graduate, revolutionized the cotton farming and tex- tile industry. “Gin” was a shortened form of “engine.” This machine quickly and easily separated cotton fibers from their seeds.

4378X: Samuel Morey, Gas or Vapor Engine, April 1, 1826. This was the first internal combustion engine in the U.S. Even modern mechanics would recognize the two cylinders, as well as the arrangement of valves and cams.27

9430 X: Samuel Colt, a key patent in revolver history, Feb. 25, 1836. On Feb. 25, 1836, Samuel Colt, of Hartford, Conn. received a patent on a “Revolving Gun”, (patent No. 9,430X) This is the first of the famous “Six-Shooters,” which would play such an important role in westward expansion and the winning of the West.

9899X: C. Waterman, Brick Machine, July 2, 1836.

The robust revision of the patent laws in 1836 had reorganized the Patent Office and designated the person in charge of the office as the Commissioner of Patents. There are a few excellent works that have dealt with the internal workings of the office in that embryonic period.28 Other works deal with the enactment of relevant legislation and the rise of pertinent publications as well.29

Rebuilding the Patent Office; Fireless for Forty Years.

As a postlude to the fire of the previous year, in 1837, the Patent Office temporarily was moved to the Old City Hall (which, at that time, was the District Court House), otherwise known as the District of Columbia Courthouse. This historic building, which can still be seen today, and is located at Judiciary Square at 451 Indiana Avenue N.W., was declared a national landmark in 1960. Currently, it houses the District of Columbia Court of Appeals. The Patent Office’s “temporary” relocation to that grand old edifice lasted three decades.

After the 1836 fire, Congress also passed a patent restoration budget of $100,000 on March 3, 1837. (That was the year that saw the patent grant for the electric motor.)30 The funds and project were later discontinued, however, in 1849 (with $88,237.32 spent).

It also was the year of newer patent legislation, the Act of March 3rd. Under that act, money was appropriated to replace the lost patents, and applicants were required to submit two sets of patent drawings with their applications.

The new home for the Patent Office would not be ready until over 30 years later in 1867. Prior to the breaking of ground for the new Patent Office, in 1836, the situs had been an undeveloped hill on the edge of nascent capital. An icehouse and a modest cabin, populated by a squatter couple and their complement of chickens, and surrounded by several varieties of fruit trees, were the only impediments to patent progress and they were hastily dispatched.

A new, purportedly fire-proof trio of buildings sprang up to house the Patent Office, the Treasury Department, and the General Post Office. When legendary English writer, Charles Dickens, visited Washington, D.C. with his wife in January of 1842, Dickens, candidly, was unimpressed; he found a:

“City of Magnificent Intentions.… Spacious avenues, that begin in nothing, and lead nowhere; streets, mile-long, that only want houses, roads and inhabitants; public buildings that need but a public to be complete; and ornaments of great thoroughfares, which only lack great thoroughfares to ornament—.”31

The designer of the building-to-be was Architect Robert Mills (1781–1855), who also designed the Treasury and Post Office buildings. Resorting to Greek revival architecture, construction began in 1836 but took 31 years fully to complete. Mills sought and worked toward a fire-proof design, but he was dismissed in 1851.

The Patent Office moved into the building in the spring of 1840, the same year as Patent No. 1,647 was granted to Samuel F.B. Morse, of New York, for “Telegraph Signs.” Yet, the building’s last wing was not to be finished until 1867, although it was used for Abraham Lincoln’s Second Inaugural Ball in 1865. Nevertheless, it only lasted a dozen years until it, too, felt the fanning flames of fate, and was burned to a crisp in 1877. Notwithstanding the foregoing, the Patent Office would remain in its new digs until 1932.

Wondrously, the historic old Patent Office building still may be seen today in Washington, D.C. at F and G Streets and 7th–9th Streets NW in the Chinatown section.32 It was re-opened on July 1, 2006 as The Donald W. Reynolds Center for American Art and Portraiture, a melding of two Smithsonian Institution Museums, namely, The National Portrait Gallery and the Smithsonian American Art Museum.

To put matters into some chronological context, the First (new) Utility Patent was granted in 1836. The First Re-Issue Patent was granted in 1838. The First Design Patent was granted in 1843. The First Plant Patent was granted in 1931.33

Several intervening events between the years 1836 and 1877 are rather noteworthy. In 1839, for example, an agricultural division, the predecessor to the U.S. Department of Agriculture, was established in the building’s basement level. Established in the Patent Office, Department of State, by an act of March 3, 1839 (5 Stat. 354), this division compiled agricultural statistics, collected and distributed seeds, and reported on regional crops and the use of chemicals in agriculture.34 The more formal beginnings of the U.S. Department of Agriculture would later take place during President Lincoln’s tenure, in the spring of 1862.

In the spring of 1840, the Patent Office moved into its new headquarters. Wings were later added to the building in 1852, 1856, and 1867, respectively.

A few years following the agricultural division’s debut, in 1842, the first design patent, “Des. 1” (now referred to as U.S. Patent D1), was granted to industrialist George Bruce for “new printing types.” Later, the Act of May 27, 1848 added two principal and two assistant examiners to the office, and the Patent Office was transferred to the newly created Department of Interior. It was not until 1925 that the office was transferred to the Department of Commerce, where it remains to the date of this writing.

Design patents were allowed under the Act of Aug. 29, 1842. The first of this type of patent was awarded to a New Yorker for printing types.35 Another New Yorker, Charles Goodyear, received a more important patent, in 1844, one that ultimately greatly assisted the automobile industry in this country, the vulcanization of rubber.36

After the Republic of Texas joined the Union in 1845, there was a move afoot to have Congress validate patents that had been granted in Texas. No action was taken thereon.37 A year later, Elias Howe secured his sewing machine patent.38 At the Patent Office, patents came to be issued every Tuesday, a practice that persists. By reason of the Act of August 30, 1850, appeals from the Patent Office were to be heard by the U.S. Court for the District of Columbia.

Medical professionals have long had an impact on and in the Patent Office. In 1851, a medical doctor in Florida, John Gorrie, invented the ice machine in his quest to keep his patients cool.39 While Dr. Gorrie’s commercial plans and financial dreams melted away, you can thank later developments in refrigeration and air conditioning for his pioneering work.

The next memorable medical personage to appear on the patent scene was legendary nurse, Clarissa (“Clara”) Harte Barton (Dec. 25, 1821–April 12, 1912). She was a hospital nurse during the Civil War and was lovingly christened “The Angel of the Battlefield.” She also was a teacher but, back in 1854–57, she was a patent clerk at the U.S. Patent Office.

“Her $1,400 annual salary was the same as that of the male clerks. Secretary of the Interior Robert McClelland did not like women working in government offices and reduced Barton to a copyist with a pay rate of 10 cents for each 100 words. Her position was eliminated when Democratic President James Buchanan was elected in 1856. She then returned to Massachusetts, where she lived with family and friends for several years. When Abraham Lincoln was elected president in 1860, Barton returned to her former position as a copyist at the Patent Office.”40

In 1856, the Patent Office staff consisted of a Commissioner, a chief clerk, 12 examiners, 12 assistant examiners, a draftsman, an agricultural clerk, a machinist, a librarian and about 50 clerical employees. By 1859, copyright matters also were transferred from the Department of State to the Department of the Interior and the Secretary of the Interior directed the Commissioner of Patents to handle copyrights, as well, which he did by adding a “Librarian of Copyrights” to the official roster.

Barton was working as a Recording Clerk in the Patent Office when the Civil War broke out on April 12, 1861. Shortly thereafter, Clara left the office milieu to help and serve the wounded and hungry troops; as such, she has long been remembered for her phenomenal humanitarian work which also included the founding of a marvelous institution that is with us to this day, the American Red Cross.

During the Civil War, parts of the Patent Office also were used as a hospital for troops wounded in battle.41 Speaking of battle, and wounded soldiers, during that time frame, Gatling worked on and perfected his early version of the machine gun and patented same in 1862.42

In one of the shameful chapters of the history of the Patent Office, in 1864, an African American man, Benjamin T. Montgomery, was denied a patent for his new-fangled steamboat-propeller invention. The basis for the denial was the fact that the Applicant was a slave. Commissioner Joseph Holt of the Patent Office, a Kentuckian, interpreted the 1857 Supreme Court decision in the infamous Dredd Scott case to mean that a free black person who had escaped to the North did not have the right to patent his invention.43 Holt and the Patent Office applied that same logic; thus, if Mr. Montgomery was not a citizen, then, it stood to reason that he could not take the required pledge as a citizen that his invention had been conceived by him.44

In a little-known story about the Civil War period, it may well come as a surprise that Jefferson Davis and the Confederacy had created their own “alternate universe” patent office.45 A former U.S. Patent Office Examiner became the one, and only, Confederate Commissioner in the South. Located in Richmond, Virginia, at the Confederate Patent Office, patents were issued for 14 years and, unlike under U.S. federal law at that time, slaves could apply for patent grants.46

In 1869, Samuel Sparks Fisher was appointed the 12th Commissioner of Patents. Fisher, who only served from 1869–1870, actively sought to revamp the patent law and was largely responsible for the Patent Act of 1870.47 Clearly, the most important Patent Act since the

Act of 1836, the July 8th legislation served to consolidate the various statutes relating to patents which had been enacted over the previous three decades, coupled with some fresh provisions.

The 1870 legislation, inter alia, provided that the Commissioner of Patents was afforded jurisdiction to register trademarks and to promulgate rules and regulations concerning marks. As to copyrights, the Librarian of Congress was designated as the Custodian of all records and matters concerning the same. The Commissioner also was given power to make rules and regulations, relating to proceedings in the Patent Office, as well as to disbar any patent agent from practice for misconduct.

That same year, James A. Bland was hired; Bland is considered to be the first African American clerk employed by the Patent Office. The post-war period also brought better results for African American inventors. Most of us are familiar with the expression “the real McCoy.” The phrase was coined, according to legend, back in or around 1872. The prolific African American inventor, Elijah J. McCoy, the Canadian-born son of American slaves, was granted U.S. Patent No. 129,843 for a train lubricating device in that year. Evidently, his invention worked so well that customers, suspicious of cheap imitations, demanded “the real McCoy.” Throughout the course of his patently productive and prolific life, McCoy was granted 57 patents.

On Wednesday, Jan. 3, 1872, the Patent Office published its First Official Gazette. Since that time, the Official Gazette has been published weekly, dutifully recording excerpts from patents and important decisions concerning patent office matters. Nowadays, the USPTO still publishes weekly, every Tuesday, but in electronic form only; there is a separate Official Gazette for Patents and an Official Gazette for Trademarks, and the most recent 52 issues for each are available online for review and study.48

In that time frame, in 1873, Louis Pasteur of France was issued a pair of patents related to improvements in the process of beer-making,49 and Eli H. Janney, an African American from Alexandria, Virginia, received a patent for an automatic train car coupler.50 Later that year, another first occurred; the first female patent examiner, Anna R.G. Nichols, was hired by the Patent Office.

“Mr. Watson—Come here—I want to see you.” Those first intelligible words—heard over the telephone (on 10 March 1876)—were spoken by the scientist and inventive genius, Alexander Graham Bell. Three days earlier, on March 7, Bell, of Salem, Massachusetts, had received a patent on his innovation in electrical communication known as the telephone.51 Mere months later, in January of 1877, Ellis Spear became the Commissioner of Patents (Jan. 29, 1877–Oct. 31, 1878). Thirteen months further into the future, the “Wizard of Menlo Park,” Thomas Alva Edison (who secured 1,093 patents overall), received a patent for his ground-breaking audio phenomenon, the phonograph device.52

In the interregnum between those auspicious patent events and, regrettably, on Commissioner Ellis’ watch, on Sept. 24, 1877, the Third Great Patent Office fire burned out of control in a significant portion of the Patent Office. Albeit many patent models were consumed by the conflagration, fortunately, this time around, many of the most critical archival papers of the Patent Office were spared a fiery fate.

The Third Great Patent Office Fire (of 1877)

Rutherford B. Hayes had been the 18th President of the United States since March 4, 1877. A week or so later, in a small town in the frozen

Northeast, the new and useful invention of earmuffs was patented.53 Since that time, every year now, on the first Saturday of December, the inventor’s hometown of Farmington, Maine (ever grateful for the industry and prosperity that the cottage industry of earmuff-making that succeeded the invention) celebrates “Chester Greenwood Day” with a variety of activities including a parade in Chester’s honor. (I should add that it is mandatory for everyone participating in the parade to wear earmuffs.)54

As spring approached in New England, on April 15, 1877, the first telephone line was laid between Boston and Somerville, Massachusetts. In November of that year, on the 29th day of that month, Edison demonstrated, for the first time, his phonograph invention.

In the media sector, The Washington Post had not quite yet come into existence; as it would not be founded until Dec. 6, 1877. Consequently, on Sept. 24, 1877, a habitual newspaper reader would have to turn elsewhere to read the big news of the day, namely, that a fearsome fire had, once again, erupted at the U.S. Patent Office.

Though the damage was extensive, this time, fortuitously, the fire did not utterly destroy the building as it had done some four decades earlier. Yet, the noxious fumes and licking flames had ruined the West and North Wings.

Once again, as in 1836, numerous patent models had been destroyed. Estimates ranged from around 80,000 models that had been incinerated. (From this point onward, models were no longer mandatory when applying for a patent, but were still frequently requested by the commissioner.) In addition, some 600,000 drawings were burnt to a crisp.55

In the final analysis, however, unlike the situation in 1836, no patents were lost completely.56 The primary reason was that duplicates could be re-printed by the office.

The underlying cause of the 1877 fire was never determined. The most prevalent theory was that a reaction of spontaneous combustion had occurred due to chemical fumes which had, in turn, created a fire hazard vis-à-vis all the flammable material inside the building. Yet another theory of the day was that a lens had caught the sun’s rays and focused them on a combustible object.57 In either case, the “fireproof” building had cost the government $3 Million (in 19th-century dollars)58, with an additional loss of half a million in cash.59

Roughly two-fifths of all the models were damaged either by fire or water. There is an old saying: “Fire, water, and government know nothing of mercy.” On a positive note, some 200,000 drawings were salvaged by being carried by hand out of the building.

The bottom line is that while the building was supposed to be fireproof, its contents (to wit, the models, the papers, the documents, the books) most assuredly were not. And, after all, the roof was constructed of wood. As the old saying warns, “[f]ire and gunpowder do not sleep together.”

Notwithstanding the conflagration of 1877, the U.S. Patent Office soon re-opened for business. This time around it was far easier to accomplish, as duplicates of the patents could simply be re-printed. For the year ended 1877, the Patent Office had granted 185,813 utility patents, and 9,686 design patents.60

Two years later, in 1879, Parisian sculptor, Auguste Bartholdi, was issued U.S. Design Patent No. 11,023 for his awe-inspiring sculpture work entitled “Liberty enlightening the world.” We know it better as The Statue of Liberty. Speaking of Paris, in 1887, the United States joined the Paris Convention, which was an international treaty that served to strengthen and harmonize the protection of pat- ent-proprietors across the world.

In 1879, the U.S. Supreme Court handed down a decision declaring provisions of the Trademark Law of 1870 unconstitutional. That decision rested on the Court’s reasoning that the Constitution’s patent clause was not broad enough to cover trademarks and that the law was not premised on the “interstate commerce” clause.61 A year later, Edison would receive a patent for the light bulb.62

My focus, decidedly, has been mainly on the 18th century and 19th century events which befell the Patent Office. However, to round out the story (and, perhaps, begin the groundwork for another article), I shall provide a thumbnail sketch of the continued journey of the Patent Office into and during the Twentieth Century and beyond.

During the Roaring Twenties, the first Manual of Patent Examination Procedure was published by the Patent and Trademark Office Society (1920). A decade later, in 1930, Congress passed The Plant Patent Act,63 creating a distinct type of patent to protect new varieties of asexually reproduced non-tuber propagated plants. Within a year, in 1931, inventor Henry Rosenberg received U.S. Plant Patent No. 1 for a “climbing or trailing rose.” The rose in question was named “New Dawn” and this variety remains popular even nowadays.

Twentieth Century Patent Office Moves.

With the heralding of 1932, Application and issue fees for patents were increased to a stiff $30. More crucially, perhaps, over a fourmonth period, the Patent Office physically moved to the Department of Commerce Building.

During the Second World War, in 1942, most of the Patent Office moved to Richmond, Virginia. Only a small portion of the office’s employees was then stationed in Washington. That situation lasted for about five years.

In the fall of 1946, those parts of the Patent Office that had moved to Richmond, Virginia, were then shifted over to a temporary location at Gravelly Point, in Arlington County, Virginia, on the outskirts of Washington, D.C. By Feb. of 1947, the Patent Office was moving back to the Department of Commerce building inside the capitol district.

One other move that I cannot neglect to mention pertained not to the office, writ large, but rather belonged to a certain Patent Agent. Chester Carlson had grown weary of having to make so many copies of patent applications using the then-current copying technology, namely, carbon paper. In 1959, therefore, Carlson developed a new copying process which he presented to IBM for evaluation—and bitter rejection. The IBM people thought the marketplace would do just fine with carbon paper as opposed to a bulky machine to make copies. How wrong they were! Mr. Carlson was none other than the inventor of the process of “xerography,” and the company that would market it: Xerox!64

In April of 1967, the Patent Office started to move its operations, slowly but surely, to a new headquarters, at Crystal City, in Arlington, Virginia. By July of 1968, many internal units had been transferred over to the new locale.

Thankfully, during the roughly 100-year period from the Third Great Patent Office Fire until the renaming of the Patent Office as the “Patent and Trademark Office,” in 1975, there were no more conflagrations. Nevertheless, the seemingly nomadic agency would move its offices yet again.

Re-named, once again, in 2003, the office thereafter, and until today, would be known as the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO). Eventually, around 2005, the USPTO began moving from Arlington to its current headquarters in Alexandria, Virginia, where the office remains to the present time. Later, by 2009, the remaining offices of the Patents and the Chief Information Officer would also move to the city of Alexandria, thus, consummating the agency’s most recent peregrinations.

The USPTO’s aptly named Madison Building, situated at 600 Dulaney Street, in Alexandria, is part and parcel of a campus of 11 buildings amidst a city-like development surrounded by groundfloor retail and high-rise residential buildings. Subsequently, since 2012, USPTO has launched satellite offices in Detroit, Denver, Silicon Valley (San Jose), and Dallas.65

Back in 1790, there was but one man, the First Patent Examiner, Thomas Jefferson, who had toiled over the handful of patent applications presented during that first year. Only three Letters Patent were issued on Jefferson’s watch; today, the USPTO issues hundreds of thousands each patent year. For CY 2015, for example, USPTO issued 325,979 total patents (while taking in a total of 629,647 applications).66 While it took 75 years to issue the first million patents, the last million grants only took three years. Momentously, in 2018, USPTO issued its ten-millionth U.S. Patent.67 Number 11,000,000 was issued on May 11, 2021.

For that special occasion, the USPTO redesigned the patent cover in preparation for the issuance of patent number 10 million. The new design, an homage to the classic elegance of its predecessors, was unveiled on March 11, 2018 and, starting with U.S. Patent No. 10,000,000, has been issued with all patents. That patent was the first to receive the newly redesigned patent cover, and it was signed by President Donald Trump during a special ceremony at the Oval Office.68

A far cry from a lone Thomas Jefferson dutifully sitting at his self-designed work desk, 228 years later, by the year 2016, USPTO had 12,725 employees, 8,351 of which were Patent Examiners, and 570 of which were Trademark Examining Attorneys.69 The USPTO’s Budget for FY2022 was $3.994 Billion, covering 13,723 positions.

The first chief of the Patent Office, Dr. Thornton drew a yearly salary of $2,000 or less. The former Director of USPTO, the 59th leader in its history, was Andrei Iancu (Feb. 8, 2018–2021). Director Iancu, who holds a J.D. from the UCLA School of Law, as well as an M.S. in Mechanical Engineering and a B.S. in Aerospace Engineering, both from UCLA, commanded a salary of $165,300. Notably, that amount is far less than Iancu had made, or could now earn, in private practice.70

For FY 2019, the USPTO requested a budget of $3,078,701,000, as well as 11,686 employees, for its Patent Program.71 Most (entry-level) Patent Examiners start with the USPTO as a GS-7 or GS-9. The accompanying annual salary for that GS range is $54,857 to $83,242.72 In 2017, the average salary at USPTO (salary plus bonus) was $121,797.30 (for a total of $1.52 Billion).73

Worth mentioning, as an aside, is the fact that the USPTO’s budget is unique amongst federal agencies in that it operates solely on the fees collected from its users, rather than taxpayer dollars.74 Truly, the U.S. Patent Office has been and continues to be an amazing organ of government in so many ways and on so many levels. As American author and humorist Mark Twain75 (1837–1911) once wrote: “a country without a patent office and good patent laws is just a crab and can’t travel anyway but sideways and backways.”76

Conclusion

In his great dystopian novel, Fahrenheit 451, legendary author Ray Bradbury effectively used flames as symbolic of fire, heat, and light. Yet, fire also was a symbol of anger, strength, comfort, destruction, and rebirth. Through the sarcastically named “firemen,” who all wear helmet badges emblazoned with the number “451” and pass their days burning books, fire denotes destruction (inasmuch as 451 degrees Fahrenheit is the burn-point temperature for paper and books.) Nonetheless, a central (underground) character in the book, Clarisse, reminds the agonizing and conflicted Fireman, Montag, that candlelight (a form of fire), when controlled, symbolizes the flickering of self-awareness and knowledge.

The early history of the U.S. Patent Office77 parallels, first, a nomadic tribe, moving from one place to another, greener pasture to greener pasture, often, however, as the result of a catastrophic conflagration. As the time-worn adage admonishes us, “once burned, twice shy.”

It is perhaps, ironic, that the central role of controlled fire, one of early man’s crucial—if not the single most important—invention of all time,78 should play a major role in the history and development of the Patent Office. For those of you who prefer to calculate the import of inventions from the advent of “sliced bread,” for your information, the year was 1932 and you can pay your respects to Mr. Otto Rohwedder.79

Oscar Wilde believed that “[w]hat fire does not destroy, it hardens.” The Patent Office certainly has been a survivor. The contents, the archives, of the Patent Office, that is the stuff that kindles the flame of the real fire, the eternal flame as it were; the official oracle where many of humankind’s greatest ideas and the genius of American invention spark to life and forever burn. The mature philosophy of Thomas Jefferson, our First Patent Examiner, perhaps summed it up best: “Ingenuity should receive a liberal encouragement. Patentable subject matter should include anything under the sun that is made by man.”80 

Ira Cohen, Esq., B.A., J.D., LL.M., is an Intellectual Property Attorney and is the founder and principal of Ira Cohen, P.A. of Weston, FL. He is a member of the Florida and New York Bars, has been practicing law for 42 years, and is rated AV Pre-Eminent® by Martindale Hubbell.® Attorney Cohen served as Judicial Law Clerk to the Honorable Harold J. Raby, United States Magistrate Judge for the Southern District of New York (1982-85). Ira also is the Immediate Past Chair of the FBA’s Intellectual Property Law Section, a proud Sustaining Member of the Federal Bar Association, a Lifetime Fellow of the Foundation of FBA, the Columns Editor for The Federal Lawyer, an FBA Moot Court Judge, a Member of FBA National Council, and an FBA Mentor. Ira can be reached at icohen@ictrademarksandcopyrights.com

Endnotes

1A monster hit song for iconic singer-composer Billy Joel in 1989, the lyrics powerfully convey the message that there have always been crazy times and that such times will continue as long as human life exists.

2The word “Capitol” comes from the Latin “Capitolium,” the name of the temple of Jupiter at Rome on the Capitoline Hill.

3“When the British burned Washington in 1814, Patent Office Superintendent William Thornton managed to convince soldiers to spare his building; it was the only government office in D.C. that didn’t get torched.” Stacy Conradt, The Time Every Patent in the U.S.

Went Up in Smoke, Mental Floss Blog (Dec. 15, 2016), https:// www.mentalfloss.com/article/89335/time-every-patent-us-wentsmoke.

4“Those who don’t build must burn. It’s as old as history and juvenile delinquents.” Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451, 42 (Simon & Schuster, 2012 ed.).

5Great Patent Fire of 1836 USPTO, http://www.uspto.gov/ web/offices/ac/ahrpa/opa/kids/special/1836fire

6After the “Storm that saved Washington," as it soon came to be called, the Americans returned to the city. The Folklorist: The Tornado That Saved Washington, D.C. (Internet Video broadcast, Feb. 11, 2014) https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CP3rhuQ_VrI

7About a month later, on Sept. 13–14, 1814, General Ross and his fleet in Chesapeake Bay were involved in another monumental American historical event that quickly served as the soulful inspiration for a Washington lawyer, Francis Scott Key, to pen the poem (originally entitled the “Defence of Fort McHenry”) that would later be set to music (to wit, “Anachreon in Heaven”) and was destined to become the lyrics to our national anthem, “The Star Spangled Banner.” The event? General Ross and the British Navy had unsuccessfully tried to bombard and invade Baltimore and destroy the American fort that stood stony guard over Baltimore’s harbor. 8At least one source credits the first patent that was awarded to a woman as a letters patent for a means of weaving “straw with silk or thread,” which was granted to Mary Kies of Killingly, Connecticut.

See “U.S. Patent History—Creation of U.S. Patent System, http;// www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/uspatent.htm

9U.S. Patent No. 8,277X, Cyrus H. McCormick. This machine gave rise to the International Harvester Company, which lasted until 1985.

10U.S. Patent No. 9,430X, for a “revolving gun,” was received by Samuel Colt on Feb. 25, 1836. Colt was also a pioneer of assembly line production. He founded Colt’s Patent Fire-Arms Manufacturing Company in 1836 and it is still in business today.

11U.S. Patent No. 9,798X.

12Staves are vertical wooden posts or planks used in buildings and other structures.

13Ellsworth was nominated by President George Washington to be Chief Justice of the Supreme Court but served for only four years (1796–1800) due to ill health. During Ellsworth’s ephemeral tenure as Chief Justice, Ellsworth’s main legacy was his discouragement of the prior practice of seriatim opinion writing (in which each Justice wrote a separate opinion in the case and delivered that opinion from the bench). Instead, Ellsworth encouraged the consensus of the Court to be represented in a single written opinion, a practice that continues to the present time.

14Cited in Samuel Sass, A Patently False Patent Myth, Skeptical Inquirer , 310–313 (1989).

15Senator Ruggles’ patent was the first denoted with the serial number system, which came into being on July 13, 1836. The same system is still currently utilized. Table of Issue Years and Patent Numbers for Selected Document Types Issued Since 1836. https:// www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/issuyear.htm.

16“…like a fire bell in the night, awakened and filled me with terror.” Thomas Jefferson, Letter to John Holmes, Apr. 22, 1820. Library of Congress. https://www.loc.gov/exhibits/jefferson/159.html

17See, generally, Kenneth W. Dobyns, The Patent Office Pony: A History of the Early Patent Office (reprint edition, 1997).

18Paul J. Niemann, More Invention Mysteries: 52 LitlleKnown Inventions, 129 (2006).

19“The Patent Fire of 1836, http://patent.laws.com/patent-act-of1836-patent-fire-of-1836).patentlaws.com.

20Sabra Chartrand, Patents; The earliest U.S. patents went up in smoke. But a few are still being recovered, even 168 years after the fire, N.Y. Times, Aug. 9, 2004.

21Those patents have no known connection to Dr. Xavier or to “The X-Men” (with due apologies to the late, great Stan Lee, creator of the Marvel Universe®).

22A reissue patent has been defined as “[a] patent that is issued to correct unintentional or unavoidable errors in an original patent, such as to revise the specification or fix an invalid claim. Black's Law Dictionary, 1235 (9th Ed., 2009).

23See JUSTIA Patents for a list of Morley’s U.S. Patents. https:// patents.justia.com/inventor/samuel-morley.

24Bailey printed the first official copy of the Articles of Confederation (the agreement among the 13 original states of the United States of America that served as its first constitution). The Articles of Confederation came into force on Mar. 1, 1781, after being ratified by all 13 states.

25The timing of this patent granted only two months before the Whiskey Excise Tax which, in turn, gave rise to the Whiskey Rebellion (1791–1794), was less than fortuitous. The so-called “whiskey tax” was the first tax imposed on domestic goods by the neophyte federal government and was designed to raise revenue for Revolutionary War debt. What it did raise were tempers and a call to arms.

26In case you have ever wondered, “gin” is just a shorthand form of the word “engine.” The reason that the cotton gin was so critical and impactful on the American economy was that the invention served to separate the embedded seeds from the cotton.

27Internal combustion engines enjoy a very long history. Between the 10th and 13th centuries, the “fire arrow,” a gunpowder-fueled form of rocket engine was invented in China.

28Daniel Preston, The Administration and Reform of the U.S. Patent Office 1790–1836, Journal of the Early Republic No. 3, 331–353 (1985).

29See, e.g., Brief History of the United States Patent Office from its foundation—1790 to 1886—with an outline of laws, growth, publications, office routine, etc. (R. Beresford, Printer., Washington, D.C., 1886), http://www.myoutbox.net.pobere

30The patent, No. 132, was granted in 1837 to Thomas Davenport. 31Dickens at Georgetown: A Bicentenary Celebration, Feb. 7, 2012, June 8, 2012. https://www.library.georgetown.edu/exhibition/ dickens-georgetown-bicentenary-celebration.

32President Eisenhower gave it to the Smithsonian Institution in 1958. “10 Million Patents,” https://10millionpatents.uspto.gov

33Table of Issue Years and Patent Numbers for Selected Document Types Issued Since 1836, https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ ido/oeip/taf/issuyear

34Records of the Agricultural Division 1839-60. Transferred, with the Patent Office, to the Department of the Interior by the act creating the department (9 Stat. 325), Mar. 3, 1849. Division functions were transferred to the newly established Department of Agriculture in 1862. Textual Records: Records relating to annual reports, 1839–60, including letters received concerning crop prospects and agricultural practices, questionnaires, and articles and essays. Records relating to the collection and distribution of seed plants, 1839-60, including reports from consular officials, foreign seed firms, and missionaries; requests from agricultural societies and farmers; and reports about cultivating seeds and plants. Related Records: Letters sent by the Agricultural Division of the Patent Office, 1849–1862, in RG 48, Records of the Office of the Secretary of the Interior. https://www.archives.gov/research//guide-fedrecords/groups/016.html#16.2

35U.S. Design Patent No. 1, for “Printing types,” George Bruce, New York, N.Y.

36U.S. Patent No. 3,633, for an “Improvement in the Manner of Preparing Fabrics of India Rubber,” issued June 15, 1844. 37During the Civil War, the Confederacy set up its own patent office; see notes lxvii and lxviii, infra.

38U.S. Patent No. 4,750, Elias Howe, Jr., for an “Improvement in Sewing Machines,” issued on Sept. 10, 1846.

39U.S. Patent No. 8080, to Gorrie, for an ice machine, in 1851. 40Maggie MacLean, Clara Barton (The Angel of the Battlefield), https://ehistory.osu.edu/biographies/clara-barton-angel-battlefield. 411861–1863. Soldiers also were quartered in some of the rooms and thefts of models were reported.

42U.S. Patent No. 36,836, to Richard J. Gatling, of Indianapolis, Indiana, for an “Improvement in Revolving Battery Gun,” issued Nov. 4, 1862.

43Dredd Scott v. Sandford, 60 U.S. (19 How.) 393, 15 L. Ed. 691 (1857). The infamous Supreme Court decision held that persons of African descent could not be and were not intended to be American citizens under the U.S. Constitution and, thus, lacked standing to sue in federal court.

44Matt Novak, The Story of the American Inventor Denied a Patent Because He Was a Slave, Paleofuture, Aug, 28, 2018, https:// paleofuture.gizmodo.com/the-story-of-the-american-inventordenied-a-patent-beca-1828329907

45This was provided for in the Constitution of the Confederate States of America (May 21, 1861).

46It is believed that less than 300 patents were issued by the Confederacy; we will never be sure, as all the records ostensibly were destroyed.

47Patent Act of 1870, Ch. 230, 16 Stat. 198–217 (July 8, 1870).

48Official Gazette for Patents, https://www.uspto.gov/learning-andresources/official-gazette/official-gazette-patents; Official Gazette for Trademarks, https://www.uspto.gov/learning-and-resources/ official-gazette/trademark-official-gazette-tmog.

49Patent No. 132,245, issued Jan. 28, 1873, for “Improvements in the Process of Making Beer” and Patent No. 141,072, issued July 22, 1873, for “Improvements in the Manufacture and Preservation of Beer and in the Treatment of Yeast and Wort, Together with Apparatus for the Same.”

50Car Couplings, Patent No. 138,405 (issued Apr. 2, 1873).

51Telegraphy, Patent No. 134,465.

52Phonograph or Speaking Machine, Patent No. 200,521 (issued Feb. 19, 1878).

53Invented in 1873 by Chester Greenwood, of Farmington, Maine, the patent awarded to his improved ear protectors was U.S. Patent No. 188,292 (issued Mar. 13, 1877).

54David Sharp, Ear, Ear: Maine Town Hails Earmuff’s Inventor, CHIC. TRIB., Dec. 5, 2015, at 3.

55Levin H. Campbell, The Patent System of the United

States so Far as It Relates to the Granting of Patents: A History (1891).

56Niemann, supra, at 130.

57Patent Office Fire, Harper’s Weekly, 809–810, Oct. 13, 1877. 58In 2018 dollars, the amount in question would be worth $83,698,757.57.

59Bret Harte, The Writings of Bret Harte, 237 (1914).

60U.S. Patent and Trade Office, Table of Issue Years and Patent Numbers, for Selected Document Types Issued Since 1836, https://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/ac/ido/oeip/taf/issuyear.htm.

61U.S. v. Steffens; U.S. v. Wittemann; U.S. v. Johnson, 100 U.S. 82 (1879); those cases had to do with criminal prosecutions, under the trademark laws, for alleged trademark counterfeiting.

62U.S. Patent No. 223,898, Thomas A. Edison, Menlo Park, N.J., for “An Electric Lamp for Giving Light by Incandescence”, granted on Jan. 27, 1880.

63The Plant Patent Act of 1930 (enacted on June 17, 1930, as Title III of the Smoot-Hawley Tariff, Ch. 497, 46 Stat. 703, codified as 35 U.S. Code Ch. 15).

64U.S. Patent History, Ch. 497, 46 Stat. 703, codified as 35 U.S. Code Ch. 15). 64 U.S. Patent History—Creation of U.S. Patent System, http://www.ideafinder.com/history/inventions/ uspatent.htm

65“U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Opens New Texas Regional Office, Nov. 13, 2015, http://www.commerce.gov/ news/blog/2015/11/us-patent-and-trademark-office-opens-newtexas-regional-office

66U.S. Patent Statistics Summary Table, Calendar Years 1963–2014, 6/2-015 update, http://www.uspto.gov/web/pffices/ac/ ido/oeip/taf/us_stat.htm

67U.S. Patent No. 10,000,000, issued on June 19, 2018, to Inventor Joseph Marron (and his Assignee, Raytheon Company), for his invention, namely, a “Coherent LADAR Using Intra-Pixel Quadrature Detection,” which improves laser detection and ranging (LADR).”

68Press Release, U.S. Patent and Trademark Office, United States Issues Patent Number 10,000,000 (June 19, 2018), https://www. uspto.gov/about-us/news-updates/united-states-issues-patentnumber-10000000

69Patent examiners, who make up the lion’s share of USPTO personnel, generally are newly graduated scientists and engineers. While they hold degrees in various scientific disciplines, they need not have law degrees. Unlike Patent Examiners, Trademark Examining Attorneys must be licensed attorneys.

70Staci Zaretsky, The $4 Million Man: Meet Trump’s Patent And Trademark Pick, Above the Law, Sept. 27, 2017, https:// abovethelaw.com/2017/09/the-4-million-man-meet-trumps-patenttrademark-pick

71U.S. Patent and Trademark Office Fiscal Year 2019 Congressional Justification, Feb. 12, 2018, http://www. osec.doc.gov/bmi/BUDGET/FY19CBJ/USPTO_FY19_ President%E2%80%99s_Budget-FINAL.pdf.

72Engineers and Scientists, Job Announcements are now open for Patent Examiners (2018), https://www.uspto.gov/ sites/default/files/documents/Examiner%20brochure%202018%20 downloadable.pdf.

73Patent and Trademark Office Salaries of 2022, https://www. federalpay.org/employees/patent-and-trademark-office

74United States Patent and Trademark Office, 10 Million Patents Media Kit (2018), https://10millionpatents.uspto.gov/ docs/patent-10million-media-kit.pdf.

75Twain, himself an inventor, held a number of patents. The author of such classic American novels as The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn and The Adventures of Tom Sawyer,, Twain held a patent for the “Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments” (ubiquitous in modern clothing, especially in bras); under his legal name, Samuel Langhorne Clemens, he received his patent, No. 121,992, for the garment fastener on Dec. 19, 1871. Twain secured two other patents, to wit: the first for a selfpasting scrapbook (U.S. Patent No. 140245, granted June 1873), and the second for a history trivia “Game Apparatus” (U.S. Patent No. 324535, granted August 1885).

76Mark Twain, A Connecticut Yankee in King Arthur's Court (1889).

77For further reading, see Kenneth W. Dobyns, The Patent Office Pony: A History of the Early Patent Office (1st edition, 1994), Fredericksburg, Virginia: Sergeant Kirkland’s Museum and Historical Society, p. 249.

78The controlled use of fire generally is thought to be an invention of our ancestors, Homo erectus, during the Early Stone Age.

79U.S. Patent No. 1,867,377, Otto Frederick Rohwedder, of St. Joseph, Missouri, for a bread slicing machine, granted July 12, 1932.

80See 5 Writings of Thomas Jefferson 75–76 (Washington ed. 1871).

See also Diamond v. Chakrabarty, 447 U.S. 303, 308-309 (1980).