Brief Overview: History of Patents

The patents systems created by the United States is the most successful system in the world. It still takes the US Patent Office about 12 to 18 months to review a patent application after it has been filed. You should learn a little about the origins of the US patent system so if you are waiting for the Patent Offices’ decision concerning your invention, you can do this during your waiting period.

Early Venetian patents did not result in the creation of a patent system but they were the first European patents that were issued in the Republic of Venice in the late 15h century. This patent system that originated in England in the 15th century, was a 20-year monopoly given to John of Utynam for the use of a new method to make stained glass, by King Henry VI . Utynam’s was the first recorded patent in English history and it marked the beginning of the patent system that gives inventors official sanction to reap the economic benefits of their inventions.

Later English developments built the foundation of both English and US patent laws. Before the Statute of Monopolies Law was passed in 1624, monopolies used to be granted by English royalty who tended to use patents to give them to people who gave money to the royal treasury, and it was possible for patentees to get monopolies for products that were not new. The Monopolies Statute declared that patents could be issued solely to new inventions and stated that monopolies contradicted laws in England. Patent time limitations are also established by law. Early in the 18th century, the English Court required that inventions be described in writing before patents could be granted. The basis on which modern US patent law rests on consists of the English patent laws that were active during the Colonial period.

Before long the legal system of the United States began, in turn, to influence British patent laws. Inventors can look to a clause in the first Article of the US Constitution, which pertains to Arts and Science, for protection in maintaining exclusive rights to their inventions. Before 1790, the English King was the lone possessor of everything the colonists invented.

In April 1790, the US Congress passed the first US patent statute, and the 1836 Patent Law created the first modern patent system in the world. The principal feature of this system is that all patent applications are reviewed to ascertain that the inventions in question conform to the law and to ensure that they are new. The statute of 1836 established the US Patent Office employing expert workers to assess patent applications. Now applicants have the right to go against decisions of the Patent Office even being able to take the appeal to the United States Supreme Court.

At the time an elemental difference among many when it comes to the difference between the US Patent Law and patent laws of England or other European countries was that they don’t aim at exacting prices for granting patents. They also have never been an instrument for raising revenue. In the US there were patent application fees (and are also) reasonably priced. They are used only to cover the administrative expenses of the US Patent Office. To patents to a privileged few in England, by contrast, exorbitant fees limited access. Fees for patents covering England alone, without Scotland and Ireland, were equal to about four times per capita income in 1860. Inventors had to follow complicated administrative procedures before they could obtain patents,and patent fees were a source of revenues for the Crown and the Court.

English concerns about facing growing US competition finally introduced changes into the English patent laws. In 1851, England realized the US was a threat in regards to industrial supremacy. This realization signaled the start of a revision process that began in 1852 when Parliament approved the Patent Law Amendment Act the first real adjustment of the patent system in two centuries and lasted well into the twentieth century. Obviously influenced by the US Patent Law, the English Patent Law of 1852 lowered patent application fees and created the Office of the Commissioners of Patents for Inventions.

US Patent Law was first created to encourage inventiveness. Unlike many European countries, the United States does not require patentees to permit the use of their inventions. Most of the valuable patents in the United States are owned by your larger corporations who in return exploit them for all they are worth. There have been several independent inventors in America, starting with Samuel Hopkis, who received the very first US patent in early 1790.

The dilemma between the merits of protecting independent inventors versus the drawbacks of monopoly is as relevant today as it was when the English Parliament passed the Statute of Monopolies law in 1624 almost four hundred years ago.