The Foundation of the U.S. Patent System

Inscribed above the front door of the Department of Commerce building in Washington, D.C. is a quote from Abraham Lincoln that neatly sums up the role that patents have played in developing the industry and commerce that have come to define the United States as we know it:

THE PATENT SYSTEM ADDED THE FUEL OF INTEREST TO THE FIRE OF GENIUS

Patents have been with us almost since the United States' inception and have acted, as Lincoln eloquently points out, as an incentive to innovate. It may be useful, then, to pause between bites of hot dog and fireworks shows this Independence Day to take a look at the genesis of the patent system in the U.S.

The power of Congress to establish a limited monopoly for inventors was laid out in Article I, Section 8 of the Constitution:

To promote the progress of science and useful arts, by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries;

When George Washington signed the Patent Act of April 14, 1790, the burden of examining patent applications landed on a three person panel consisting of the Secretary of State, Secretary of War, and the Attorney General.

The first patent was granted July 31, 1790, to Samuel Hopkins of Philadelphia. Though the handwritten document looks pretty primitive compared to a modern patent, you can see the basic elements are there: a description of the invention (it was a new method for making something called pot ash, a material in the soap-making process), an affirmation that it was new and useful, and the granting to the exclusive right to use and sell the invention to the inventor and his heirs for a specified term (14 years at the time).

Try to imagine Condaleeza Rice, Michael Mukasey, and Robert Gates scheduling time every day to examine patents. After three years, Thomas Jefferson, Henry Knox, and Edmund Randolph found that examining applications and mediating interferences (when two people apply for the same or similar patents at around the same time) took up too much of their time. In 1793, Congress passed a revised patent law with a much more lenient process in which patents were registered without being examined.

It wasn't until the Act of July 4, 1836 that examination was restored. This act more or less established the modern patent system, in which the Commissioner of Patents, who was appointed by the President with Senate confirmation, led an office of examiners who would determine the usefulness and novelty of an invention. 1836 is also the year that patents were first numbered; the older patents have an "X" before their numbers, which were assigned retroactively.

There are some pretty great stories from the early days of the Patent Office, like where William Thornton, an early Superintendent, laid such a guilt-trip on the British soldiers burning Washington D.C. in 1814 that they spared the building in which the patent models were stored.

For those with any interest in the history of patents in the U.S., we have a couple of books here at the Patent and Trademark Center. (We also have a full run of U.S. patents, which itself is an astounding historical document.)

When you're lighting your hand-protector-equipped sparkler at your Independence Day celebration this year, don't forget the role that inventors played in the early years of the United States.

Patents -- Where are the forms, and how much does it cost?

If you've ever done business with any government entity in the U.S., you've probably learned very quickly how things tend to go. In my experience, there are two components that define a transaction with any office affiliated with any government -- a form or several forms, and a nominal fee.

Need a dog license? Owe taxes? Want a passport? Fill out the paperwork, cut a check, and be on your way.

It follows, then, that I, as a sort of go-between for people and the USPTO, am very frequently asked where the forms for patents can be found and how much it costs to apply for a patent.

The forms are simple enough to find: we have or can get copies of all of the forms for photocopying here at the library, and all of the forms are available for download from the UPSTO website. It's important to remember, though, that filing a patent application involves much more than filling out a couple of forms. To quote the USPTO brochure A Guide to Filing a Utility Patent Application, "a patent application is a complex legal document." Click on the link to that brochure to get an idea of the parts of a complete utility patent application.

Estimating the cost of filing can be a little more complicated. Since no two patent applications are the same, the USPTO has created a sort of patent application menu, with different costs associated with different parts of the application.

To help you figure out how much you need pay, one of the forms that applicants need to fill out, called a Fee Transmittal, is a sort of checklist that you can match to the fee schedule (the official name for the menu referred to above).

If you take a look at the Fee Transmittal, it kind of resembles an income tax return -- you fill in certain values on certain lines, add or multiply other values depending on your application, then enter new values on new lines with new variables with the goal of arriving at a specific amount which you owe. (Unlike tax returns, you will always owe something.)

Also like your taxes, it's very important that you take the time to calculate your fees, check your calculations, then maybe check them again before sending in your application. If you make a mistake and send too little, you may have to pay a surcharge and your application prosecution may be delayed.

All of the above really only gives a taste of the process of applying for a patent, but my goal here, as at the reference desk, is to help people gather all of the information and materials necessary to start the process. I suspect that to many novice inventors, it comes as a surprise that there is more to obtaining a patent than filling out a form and writing a check.

It's worth noting, then, that there is plenty of help out there for people who are ready to apply for a patent and would rather not hire an agent or attorney to prepare the application. I've recommended before, and will continue to recommend, David Pressman's excellent Patent it Yourself, which walks you through all of the steps in great detail. The USPTO also has a very helpful customer service line; if you need help with your application, you can call 1-800-PTO-9199, then select option 2.

And, as always, you can get in touch with me or any of the librarians at the San Francisco Public Library Government Information Center.

New Exhibit at the Patent and Trademark Center

If you are reading this, you are probably afflicted with what we might call a touch of intellectual-property-nerdiness. Come on, admit it. Perhaps you admire the effect patents have had on ingenuity and technological advancement in the last couple of centuries. Maybe you're an inventor yourself and recognize the beauty of contributing to the unparalleled body of knowledge that the USPTO's files represent.

Or, if you're like me, you think patents have an appeal beyond the inventions that they describe; that they are a very cool historical record of the times from which these inventions arose. If that's the case, you may be interested in "Patently Beautiful," a new exhibit that will be showing through August at the Patent and Trademark Center in San Francisco Public's Main Library.

Here's the blurb from the flyer:

Patently Beautiful is a look at patents from each decade of the 20th century representing the technological march forward in the world of beauty products. Often familiar and occasionally absurd, these drawings, taken from original United States patents, illustrate the innovation behind the products that have helped define the concept of beauty in the United States in the last 100 years.

Teresa Riordan, author of Inventing Beauty (a work which helped inspire this exhibit) sums up the fun of this exhibit and of all patents:

No small amount of folk are lies hidden in the patent archives, as Siegfried Giedion once observed.

If you're into the idea of seeing an electric hairdryer from the turn of the century, or what a Scrunci is called in technical terms, stop by the library and have a look at the exhibit.