RAIDERS OF THE LOST PATENTS

Fun article in the August 9th New York Times entitled "Lawyers Unearth Early Patents" about the X-patents (no, it is not about aliens controlling the earth). 

As background:

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. Over time, the appearance of missing X-patents grew fewer and farther between, so that now no one at the patent agency, which does not have an official historian, can remember the last time it happened. 

Apparently, patent lawyers Scott J. Asmus, a partner in the law firm of Maine & Asmus in Nashua, N.H., and associate, Andrew P. Cernota found inventor copies of 14 patents at Dartmouth College.

In its first 46 years of existence, the Patent Office, as it was known then, issued the first patent received by a woman, and the first by an African-American. But all its records were lost when a fire gutted the building where the patents were being stored temporarily while a more modern, fireproof headquarters was under construction. There was a fire station right next door, but it was December, and in the frigid early morning hours the volunteer firefighters discovered their leather hoses were cracked and a pump did not work.

What a fascinating story, a win for history and, of course, the Slashdot folks see this as one way to get rid of all the "evil" software patents being issued.

Additional resources for X-patents:

The Patent Station
Milwaukee School of Engineering
UC Berkeley Library
USPTO: X-patents search
First U.S. Patent (and Story from Oklahoma State Patent Library)

 

Dennis over at Patently Obvious also has a nice description of the X-patents -- and he scooped me on the story!