Abraham Lincoln's patent
Patent No. 6,469 for "Buoying Vessels Over Shoals" | |
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Inventor | Abraham Lincoln |
Filing date | March 10, 1849 |
Issue date | May 22, 1849 |
Location | Illinois |
Abraham Lincoln's patent relates to an invention to buoy and lift boats over shoals and obstructions in a river. Abraham Lincoln conceived the invention when on two occasions the boat on which he traveled got hung up on obstructions. Lincoln's device was composed of large bellows attached to the sides of a boat that were expandable due to air chambers. Filed on March 10, 1849, Lincoln's patent was issued as Patent No. 6,469 later that year, on May 22. His successful patent application led to his drafting and delivering two lectures on the subject of patents while he was president.
Lincoln was at times a patent attorney and was familiar with the patent application process as well as patent lawsuit proceedings. Among his notable patent law experiences as a result of his patent was litigation over the mechanical reaper; both he and his future Secretary of War, Edwin Stanton, provided counsel for John Henry Manny, an inventor. The original documentation of Lincoln's patent was rediscovered in 1997.
Background
The invention stemmed from Lincoln's experiences ferrying travelers and carrying freight on the Great Lakes and some midwestern rivers.[1] In 1860, Lincoln wrote his autobiography and recounted that while in his late teens he took a flatboat down the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers from his home in Indiana to New Orleans while employed as a hired hand. The son of the boat owner kept him company and the two went out on this new undertaking without any other helpers.[2]
Lincoln made an additional trip a few years later after moving to
Lincoln started his political career in New Salem. Near the top of his agenda was improvement of
Patent
Lincoln labeled his invention Buoying Vessels Over Shoals and it was used to get them over shoals.[7] He envisioned a system of waterproof fabric bladders that could be inflated when necessary to help ease a stuck steamboat over such obstacles.[8] When crew members knew their ship was stuck, or at risk of hitting a shallow, Lincoln's invention could be activated, which would inflate accordion-shaped air chambers along the sides of the watercraft to lift it above the water's surface, providing enough clearance to avoid a disaster.[9] As part of the research process, Lincoln designed a scale model of a ship outfitted with the device.[10] This model (built and assembled with the assistance of a mechanic from Springfield named Walter Davis[10]) that was originally taken to the United States Patent and Trademark Office in Washington[11] is now on display at the Smithsonian Institution.[12] At the time the patent was issued, Lincoln was a congressman. He is the only United States president to be a patentee.[12]
After reporting to Washington for his two-year term in Congress beginning March 1847, Lincoln retained Zenas C. Robbins, patent attorney.[13][14] Robbins most probably had drawings done by Robert Washington Fenwick, his apprentice artist.[15] Robbins filed the application on March 10, 1849,[13] which was granted as Patent No. 6,469 on May 22, 1849.[16] Lincoln's patent is the result of Offutt's flat-boat experience he had back in 1831.[17]
The device was never produced for practical use
Lincoln took his four-year-old son Robert Todd to the Old Patent Office Building in 1847[18] to the model room to view the displays, sowing one of the youngster's fondest memories.[13] Lincoln himself continued to have a special affinity for the site that covered two city blocks and is a columned structure much like ancient Roman architecture.[19]
Legacy
Lincoln's exposure to the patent system, as an inventor and as a lawyer, engendered deep beliefs in its efficacy. Patent law in the United States has a constitutional foundation which is supported by the country's founders, and was viewed as an indispensable engine for economic development.[20] It led him to draft and deliver two lectures on the subject when he was president.[21] Lincoln had an attraction to machinelike accessories all his life, which some say was hereditary and handed down to him from his father's interest in labor-saving equipment. He made speeches on inventions before he became president. He said in 1858, "Man is not the only animal who labors; but he is the only one who improves his workmanship."[1][2]
Lincoln admired the patent law system because of the reciprocal benefits it furnished both the inventor and society. In 1859 he noted that the patent system ". . . has secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added to the interest of genius in the discovery and production of new and useful things."[2][22] He described the discovery of America as the most important development in the world's history, followed second by the technology of printing and third by patent laws.[23]
Lincoln was himself a patent lawyer.
The original 1846 patent drawing was discovered in the
References
- ^ a b c d Edwards, Owen (October 2006). "Inventive Abe: In 1849, a future president patented an ingenious addition to transportation technology". Smithsonian. Archived from the original on January 1, 2012. Retrieved December 23, 2011.
- ^ a b c d e f "Lincoln's Patent". Abraham Lincoln Online. Retrieved December 23, 2011.
- ^ Emerson 2009, pp. 2–3.
- .
- ^ Emerson 2009, p. 5.
- .
- ^ Federal Writers Project 1937, p. 950.
- ^ a b Goldsmith, Harry (January 1938). "Abraham Lincoln, Inventions and Patents". Journal of the Patent Office Society. 20: 5–33.
- .
- ^ a b Emerson 2009, p. 6.
- ^ Herndon 1892, p. 299.
- ^ a b "Abraham Lincoln's Patent Model". Smithsonian. Retrieved February 17, 2021.
- ^ a b c d e McCormick 1931, p. 299.
- ^ "Lincoln's Patent" (PDF). American Civil War Anecdotes, Incidents, Articles, and Books. Skedaddle. Retrieved December 24, 2011.
- ^ Emerson 2009, p. 88.
- .
- ^ Mable 2020, p. 229.
- . Retrieved December 30, 2011.
- ^ Emerson 2009, p. 9.
- ^ "A Brief History of the Patent Law of the United States". Archived from the original on January 15, 2013. Retrieved December 29, 2011.
- ^ Emerson 2009, p. 43-50.
- ^ "Abraham Lincoln, Second Lecture on Discoveries and Inventions". Jacksonville, IL: Illinois State Library. February 11, 1859. Archived from the original on January 26, 2012. Retrieved December 23, 2011.
- ^ Clifford 1908, p. 10–13.
- ^ Emerson 2009, p. 2.
- ^ McCormick 1931, pp. 61–62.
- ^ McLean 1856, p. 539.
- ^ Hinchliff, Emerson (September 1940). "Lincoln and the 'Reaper Case'". Journal of the Illinois State Historical Society. 33: 361–65.
- ^ Emerson 2009, p. 21.
- ^ Emerson 2009, p. 29.
- ^ a b "Abraham Lincoln's Patent Model: Improvement for Buoying Vessels Over Shoals". National Museum of American History. July 31, 2008. Retrieved December 23, 2011.
Sources
- Clifford, John Herbert (1908). The Works of Abraham Lincoln, Volume 5. Fredericksburg, Virginia: Sergeant Kirkland's Museum and Historical Society. OCLC 963605728.
- Emerson, Jason (2009). Lincoln the Inventor. Chicago, Illinois: Southern Illinois University Press. ISBN 978-0-472-03066-8.
- Federal Writers Project (1937). Washington, City and Capital. Washington, D.C.: United States Government Printing Office. OCLC 865798543.
- Herndon, William Henry (1892). Abraham Lincoln / True Story of Great Life. Los Angeles, California: University of California. OCLC 70836477.
- Mable, Hamilton Wright (2020). Heroes Every Child Should Know. Chicago, Illinois: Good Press. OCLC 37447090.
- McCormick, Cyrus (1931). The Century of the Reaper : an Account of Cyrus Hall McCormick, the Inventor of the Reaper; of the McCormick Harvesting Machine Company, the Business He Created; and of the International Harvester Company, His Heir and Chief Memorial. New York, New York: Houghton Mifflin Company. OCLC 807472363.
- McLean, John (1856). Reports of cases argued and decided in the circuit court, Volume 6. Cincinnati, Ohio: H. W. Derby & Co. Publishers. OCLC 935049718.
Further reading
- Parkinson, Robert Henry (September 1946) The Patent Case that Lifted Lincoln into a Presidential Candidate Abraham Lincoln Quarterly (pages=105–22)
External links
- U.S. Patent 6,469 - Manner of Buoying Vessels - Abraham Lincoln. 1849. (Scan of Lincoln's Patent application)
- Abraham Lincoln's Patent Model at the Smithsonian department of maritime history