Chapter XLI

THE BUREAU OF PATENTS—CRAZY INVENTORS AND
WONDERFUL INVENTIONS.

Patent-Rights in Steamboats—Origin of Copyright and Patent-Laws—Congress
Settles the Matter—A Board of “Disinterested, Competent”
Persons—Destruction of the Patent-Office by Fire—The New
Building—The Corps of Examiners—The Commissioner’s Speech—Twenty
Thousand Applications _per annum_—Fourteen Thousand Patents Granted
in One Year—Wonderful Expansion of Inventive Genius—“The Universal
Yankee”—Second-hand Inventions—Where the Inventions Come from—Taking
Out a Patent for the Lord’s Prayer—A Patent for a Cow’s Tail—A
Lady’s Patent—Hesitating to Accept a Million Dollars—How Patentees
are Protected—The American System—What American Inventors Have Done,
and What They Haven’t—The First Superintendent—The Present
Commissioner—Exploits of General Legett—His Efficiency in Office—The
Inventor Always a Dreamer—Perpetual Motion—The Invention of a D.
D.—His Little Machine—“Original with Me”—Silencing the Doctor—A New
Process of Embalming—A Dead Body Sent to the Office—Utilizing
Niagara—A _Generous_ Offer—An Englishman’s Invention—Inventors in
Paris—How to Kill Lions and Tigers in the United States with
Catmint—A Fearful Bomb-shell—Eccentric Letters—Amusing Specimens of
Correspondence.

With the settlement of the English colonies in America came a great many English customs and laws, and among those adhered to was that of granting patents or passing special Acts for the protection of inventors.

In 1728, the Legislature of Connecticut granted the exclusive right of practicing the business or trade of steel-making, provided the petitioners improved the art to any good and reasonable perfection within two years. In 1785, the State of Maryland passed an act giving to one James Rumsey the exclusive right to construct, employ and navigate boats of an improved construction, to run against the current of rapid rivers. In 1787, an act was passed vesting the exclusive right of propelling boats by steam and water for a limited time. In this year a number of acts were passed to protect inventions of machines for ruff-carding-belts, grinding flour, &c., and in 1789, one for the protection of a hand fire-engine in New Hampshire was enacted.

The founders of the Constitution saw the advantages to be derived from protecting the useful arts and sciences, and we find in Article 1,