sutton044

This is part 3 of a series of posts containing Andrew Waugh QC's review of US Patents since 1790. Parts 1 and 2 can be found by clicking here and here . Patent no. 6,000,000 - December 7, 1999 1,000,000 in 8 years – 125,000 a year  Patent No. 6,000,000 - 1999 Jeffrey C. Hawkins and Michael Albanese developed a means that with the press of a single button, a person could synchronise files found on one computer with those found on another. The patent was assigned to 3Com. Per the Abstract:   Many users of handheld computer systems maintain databases on the handheld computer systems. To share the information, it is desirable to have a simple method of sharing the information with personal computer systems. An easy to use extendible file synchronization system is introduced for sharing information between a handheld computer system and a personal computer system. The synchronization system is activated by a single button press. The synchronization system proceeds to synchronize ...

This is part 2 of a series of 3 posts containing Andrew Waugh QC's review of US patents since 1790 - part 1 can be found by clicking here . Patent No. 2,000,000 - 1935 Patent No. 2,000,000 (2,009,957th) - April 30, 1935 1,000,000 in 24 years (41,667 a year) Patent number 2,000,000 was also related to tires and was granted to Joseph Ledwinka of Philadelphia for the Edward G. Budd Manufacturing Company. The focus for Ledwinka's patent was for rail cars and consisted of a pneumatic tire, used in combination with a rail wheel provided with a retaining flange. Light in weight, Ledwinka claimed that a rail car provided with wheels and tires of this type could attain exceptional high rates of speed, be braked as severely as desired, and do so safely. Patent no. 3,000,000 - September 12, 1961 1,000,000 in 26 years – 38,462 a year Kenneth Eldredge's Automatic Reading System allowed conversion of human language into machine language. The invention, which was assigned to General El...

How has US patenting changed over the past 230 years? Inspired by the announcement that the USPTO has just issued its 10 millionth patent, litigation supremo Andrew Waugh QC  has delved into the inventions behind the statistics.  The Constitution of The United States of America (then 13 states of New Hampshire, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, Connecticut, New York, New Jersey, Pennsylvania, Delaware, Maryland, Virginia, Georgia, North Carolina and South Carolina) was negotiated in Pennsylvania between May to September 1787. It was engrossed on parchment and sent to Congress on 18th September 1787 and Section 8 of Article 1 of the Constitution provided that “ The Congress shall have Power.....To promote the Progress of Science and useful Arts, by securing for limited Times to Authors and Inventors the exclusive Right to their respective Writings and Discoveries ”. Andrew has looked at the first US patent ever (both of them, read more and you’ll understand) and number 1 million, ...