Paul K. Graham

United States Utility Patents, 1836-1853 Paul K. Graham

This book documents the earliest numbered patents issued by the United States. From the first patent act in 1790 through the summer of 1836, patents were not given a reference number. Instead, they were referred to solely by the name of the inventor and the date of issue. The practice of patents being numbered sequentially began in 1836, with patent number one issued in July. The sequence is still in place today: utility patent 7,000,000 was issued in 2006. In addition to utility patents, the U. S. Patent and Trademark Office also designates design and plant patents. Design patents began in 1843 and plant patents began in 1931. The purpose of this book is to provide a record of the number, issue date, inventor, and title of the first 10,000 numbered patents, issued from July 1836 to September 1853. All of the information was abstracted directly from the published patent, rather than using a compiled patent index. The book includes a name index to inventors.