X-Patent

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X-Patent number 72, Eli Whitney’s cotton gin.

The X-Patents are all the patents issued by the United States Patent and Trademark Office from July 1790 (when the first U.S. patent was issued), to July 1836. The actual number is unknown, but the best estimate is 9,957. The records were burned in a fire, in December 1836, while in temporary storage. No copies or rosters were maintained by the government at the time, leaving only the inventors’ copies to reconstruct the collection.

1 The USPTO and its earliest days
2 The 1836 fire
3 Recovery of the X-Patents
4 A list of some X-Patents
5 References
6 External links

[edit] The USPTO and its earliest days

The Patent Commission of the U.S. was created in 1790. Its first three members were Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson, Secretary of War Henry Knox, and Attorney General Edmund Randolph.

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

U.S. Patent X1: making of Pot Ash by a new apparatus & process

On July 31, 1790 inventor Samuel Hopkins of Pittsford, Vermont became the first person to be issued a patent in the United States. His patented invention was an improvement in the “making of Pot Ash by a new apparatus & process.” The earliest patent law required that a working model of each invention be produced in miniature.

The Patent Law was revised for the first time in 1793. It adopted a simple registration system where a patent would be granted for a $30 fee. The Patent Board was replaced by a clerk in the Department of State. James Madison, Secretary of State, created a separate Patent Office within the State Department and he appointed Dr. William Thornton as its first superintendent in May 1802.

The Patent Office was the only major government building to survive the British invasion of Washington, D.C. during the War of 1812. This is credited to Dr. William Thornton who was building a musical instrument in the same building. He persuaded British officers that they would be destroying the shared intellectual record of mankind if the patents were burned. ^[1]

[edit] The 1836 fire

The disastrous fire occurred on December 15, 1836, when the patents were in temporary storage while a new (more fireproof) facility was being built. A fire station was located next to the temporary storage facility, but the hoses and pumps were frozen, and the firemen were unable to prevent the loss.

[edit] Recovery of the X-Patents

The United States Congress immediately passed a law to aid re-issuing of the missing patents after the fire. About 2,800 such patents have been recovered, and 1,989 are online.

Following the 1836 fire, a serial numbering system was instituted. This system is still in use today. When an earlier patent was recovered and re-issued, the USPTO sometimes gave it a fractional number (eg. 2960½X, issued on June 2, 1818; 8736¾X, issued on March 27, 1835) to preserve the correct sequence. Most, but not all, fractional patents are X-Patents.

Prior to this, U.S. patents were identified by titles and dates. Since then, all new patents issued are preserved and given a serial patent number started from 1. The recovered patents are also numbered from 1, however, these numbers have an “X” added to them. The X is generally added to the end of the number except for the first patent which has the X in the beginning of the number. Therefore, they are called X-Patents.

The latest X-Patents were recovered in 2004 from the Dartmouth College archives. Of the 14 found, 10 were granted to Samuel Morey including the first known patent for an internal combustion engine.

[edit] A list of some X-Patents

Wikisource has original text related to this article:

U.S. Patents issued before 1836

Patent	Invention	Inventor	Date
1X	Potash production	Samuel Hopkins	July 31, 1790
72X	Cotton Gin	Eli Whitney	March 14, 1794
4378X	Gas Or Vapor Engine	Samuel Morey	April 1, 1826
9000X	Grate	N. Winslow	July 2, 1836
9899X	Brick Machine	C. Waterman	July 2, 1836
9894X	Plow Moldboard	I. Snider	July 2, 1836
9893X	Lock	A. Roff	July 2, 1836
9890X	Thrashing Mach.	A. Parson	July 2, 1836
9889X	Cook Stove	W. Parmalee	July 2, 1836
9887X	Plow	T. Miller	July 2, 1836
9886X	Dressing Stares	C. McGregory	July 2, 1836
9885X	Cotton Gin	J. McCreight	July 2, 1836
9884X	Door Lock	J. Mo Clory	July 2, 1836
9882X	Clover Huller	W. Loomis	July 2, 1836
9879X	Feather Dresser	F.P.Knowlton	July 2, 1836
9878X	Platform Balanoe	J. Horton	July 2, 1836
9877X	Nail Extractor	R. Haynes	July 2, 1836
9876X	Cotton Press	H.G. Guyon	July 2, 1836
9875X	Cook Stove	C. Granger	July 2, 1836