The U.S. Patent Office has a long history. It was created Jan. 2, 1775, in Washington, D.C., by Henry Knox, secretary of war, Edmund Randolph, attorney general, and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson.
The U.S. Patent Act was drafted Jan. 22, 1790 which granted writers and inventors exclusive right to their work.
This bill was inspired by Thomas Jefferson, then secretary of state, and signed into law by President George Washington April 10, 1790.
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Patent Models
The first American patent numbered X000001 was granted July 31, 1790, to Samuel Hopkins of Vermont for “the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash major industrial chemical by a new Apparatus and Process.” The patent was signed by Washington and was good for 14 years. Today a granted patent gives the inventor exclusive rights for 20 years.
In 1899 Charles H. Duell, Commissioner of the U.S. Patent Office, sent his resignation letter to President William McKinley urging the closing of the Patent Office because “everything that could be invented has been invented.”
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