The Patent Office Pony: A History of the Early Patent Office

Kenneth W. Dobyns’ The Patent Office Pony: A History of the Early Patent Office provides a compelling and comprehensive chronicle of the first hundred years of the United States Patent Office. Exquisitely researched, the book uses vignettes about dozens of Patent Office officials, inventors and politicians to map out an engrossing journey describing how the Patent Office was stablished, grew, and later flourished during the country’s early years. Dobyns’ conversational style makes the subject approachable to any interested reader, although to all but the most ardent historians, the path he follows is far from predictable. Unexpected gems include a discussion of the pre-colonial protections afforded (the most fortunate) inventions; an exposition about Clara Barton (Yes, that Clara Barton, Dobyns confirms), who, during her time at the Patent Office, would become the first woman ever to be hired to a regular position in the U.S. government with work and wages equal to that of a man; and an exploration of the impact of the Civil War on the Patent Office. In today’s world where personal computers, smartphones and myriad electronic devices are becoming faster, smarter and more connected with each passing day, it is commonplace to hear people lament that the law has not evolved quickly enough to competently address concepts that have arisen with the ubiquity of these devices. Dobyns’ thoughtful examination of how the law originally approached inventions in this country, ultimately carving out a place where inventors could operate productively (and, often, profitably), provides a useful backdrop against which the modern tension between the law and technology plays out. The Patent Office Pony is a wonderful ride.

We in the United States attribute our technical and economic success to individuals and entrepreneurs who saw a need in society and provided some invention to address that need. We know the names of these major inventors, because we know their history; it has been woven into our nation’s narrative. In many instances, however, these inventions were encouraged by a patenting system that allowed an inventor to exclude others from his invention, and in essence gave the inventor a monopoly on his invention for a number of years. During the early 1800s an inventor could renew his patent monopoly for additional years, so from the start of our country patents had real economic value and were highly desired.

What we have not heard, however, are the behind-the-scenes stories of the patent office itself and how it was established and evolved to meet the needs of inventors. In The Patent Office Pony: A History of the Early Patent Office, Ken Dobyns has drawn on a multitude of original sources to tell the personal stories of how the patent office came to be and how it operated from its earliest times. Mr. Dobyns brings to life the various patent office leaders and government politicians who decided how the patent office would be run along with the inventors and entrepreneurs, many of which are now not well known, who influenced the patenting system.

The Patent Office Pony is a wonderful history, revealing why the United States Patent Office was such an important institution in the development of our country. It masterfully brings to light the stories, many previously lost in time, of the individuals that shaped not only the patent office but also the United States.

This is an excellent book to be published this year, on the history of the patent office in its first 100 years, up and until about the 1890s. The book well illustrates the engineering of the Patent Office as it helped foster engineering in the United States in the country’s first 100 formative years. That is, much like engineers and engineering devices, a group of people invented something, got it working, encountered problems, implemented solutions, encountered new problems, implemented new solutions, made progress, had setbacks, both progressing the arts and sciences and progressing the protection of the progress of art and sciences. The book has 31 chapters, as follows:
1. Protection of Inventions before America was Involved
2. Invention comes to British Colonial America
3. Independent America Explores Invention
4. To Promote the Progress of the Useful Arts
5. The First U.S. Patent System
6. The Patent Law of 1793
7. The Government Moves to Washington
8. Dr. Thornton Takes Charge
9. The Feud Between Dr. Thornton and Robert Fuller
10. The Patent Office Finds a Home of its Own
11. Dr. Thornton Saves Blodgett’s Hotel from British
12. The Rest of Dr. Thornton’s Tenure
13. Superintendent Thomas P. Jones, M.D.
14. Superintendent John D. Craig Inspires Protest
15. The Old Order Prepares to Change
16. 1836 at the Patent Office — the Best of Years
17. — and the Worst of Years
18. The New Order in Charge in the Patent Office
19. What Hath God Wrought
20. Last Years under the State Department
21. The Great Patent Office Jewel Robbery
22. The Most Successful Patent Law Firm Ever (Munn & Co.)
23. Commissioner Thomas Ewbank, Historian
24. Judge Charles Mason’s Patent Office
25. Antebellum
26. The Union Patent Office
27. The Confederate Patent Office
28. Last of the Little Patent Office
29. The Patent Office Begins to Look Modern
30. The Second Patent Office Fire
31. The End of the First Century of the Patent Office

The book is filled with stories about the many politicians and patent office personnel involved in the first 100 years of the U.S. patent system, some of them real characters (and lots of long beards). Some great pictures of the early buildings that housed the Patent Office, the text to a blood-curdling song that George Washington apparently liked singing to children, a lot of early firsts in U.S. patent history, and more. When the book comes out, I can highly recommend buying a copy – it will be a very enjoyable read, and the author, Kenneth Dobyns, did some excellent work tracking down this early history of the Patent Office.

An interesting anecdote from the Civil War. One of the first Union soldiers killed in the Civil War was Elmer Ellsworth, a law clerk for Abraham Lincoln (himself, the only president to earn a patent) and a bar-admitted patent lawyer. Ellsworth formed a regiment of 1100 troops from New York, which protected buildings in Washington and Alexandria. On May 24, 1861, Ellsworth tore down a Confederate flag that had been put adopt the Marshall House inn in Alexandria. The hotel owner, James Jackson, shot and murdered Ellsworth as he was taking down the flag. Jackson was immediately shot by Ellsworth’s troops. Sadly, today, the Hotel Monaco Alexandria has a commemorative plaque for Jackson, which does not mention his murdering of Ellsworth. Clara Barton, who was a patent clerk at the time, wrote a letter advocating that Ellsworth should be considered a martyr for the Union cause. After the Civil War, Barton went on to be the founder of the American Red Cross. I suggest that the Patent Office put up some commemorative plaque for Elmer Ellsworth.

Dobyns’ book is filled with lots of these interesting anecdotes from the first 100 years of the Patent Office, all fascinating reads.

The book will serve another purpose. To be used to hit over the head those Scalia-like flaw professors who want patentable subject matter to be dragged back to the philosophy of science of the Founding Fathers, when it comes to things like articles of “manufacture”, and the different worlds of “art” and “sciences”. The book makes it quite clear that those Americans involved early with the U.S. patent system well recognized that the U.S. patent system must evolve along with the science and engineering that was evolving while being protected by the U.S. patent system. The Founding Fathers, and these early Americans involved with the patent system, would be appalled by modern day arguments that we much restrict patentable subject matter to their understandings of “arts” (technology) and “sciences” (fine arts).

Thomas Jefferson made it quite clear – as science and engineering evolves, so too must the patent laws – there was no room in science and engineering law for fundamentalism (not in religion as well, if you read Jefferson’ abridged New Testament). So I think the Founding Fathers would be happy and proud if the Walt Disney company applied for a utility patent on a new, engineered, formulaic, improved song or movie. If that is how engineering evolved in the United States they helped found, well so be it – give Disney a patent.