History of United States Patent Law - Other Notable Dates

Other Notable Dates

• 1790 – First US Patent Act drafted in the US Constitution. The first US Patent, numbered X000001 (pictured right), was granted on July 31, 1790. The patent was granted by Thomas Jefferson. The patent was granted to Samuel Hopkins, in Pittsford, Vermont, for the "making of pot ash and pearl ash by a new apparatus and process".
• 1800 – Law prohibited foreigners to apply for patents in the US, unless they had been residents for 2 years.
• 1829 – Pennock v. Dialogue: This trial resulted in the statutory bar that patents could not be granted to inventions that were already in public use.
• 1832 -
  • All resident aliens with an intent to become US citizens were allowed to apply for patents; however, they had to use their patent within one year in the US.
  • Patents were also allowed to be changed if they had errors.
  • In Grant v. Raymond it was ruled that an insufficient description of a patent was grounds for defense in cases of patent infringement.
• 1836 – On July 13, Patent Number 1 was granted. All old patents were relisted with X's, and the first patent became Patent 1X.
• 1836 - Patent Office 1836 fire
• 1839 – Patent Law was amended to provide a grace period of two years to use the patent. Patents that were rejected by the Patent Office could appeal to the Chief Justice in D.C.
• 1842- Fabrics were allowed to be patented. Hotchkiss v. Greenwood: Patents were furthered to also be “non-obvious” besides new and useful.
• 1861 – Patent Law was amended, with some important amendments including:
  • Three chief examiners were nominated to hear patent applications that had been rejected more than twice.
  • Utility patents were now granted for 17 years.
  • Design patents could be granted for 3½-, 7-, or 14-year periods upon the request of the applicant.
• 1864 – An amendment in the Patent Law, that is still in place today, stated that a patent under review could not be edited.
• 1870 - All legislations regarding patents were framed under one Act. Approximately 105,000 patents were in place.
• 1871 - Patent applications had to include black and white drawings of a particular size.
• 1883 – The Paris Convention (ParC) took place, allowing patents to be valid among member countries.
• 1887 – The US joined the Paris Convention.
• 1893 – Patent appeals were heard in Court of Appeal for the District of Columbia.
• 1897 – Statutory bars were changed: An application had to be filed in the US within seven months of receiving an International Patent to be valid in the US. Prior knowledge of an invention was only valid if the knowledge came from the US.
• 1911 – Approximately one million patents had been granted.
• 1930 - Plant Patent Act established, which allowed asexual, manmade plants to receive patents.
• 1939 – Two-year grace period for using patents, was reduced to one year.
• 1941 - Cuno Engineering v. Automatic Devices Corp: Supreme Court ruled that a patent must show “genius.”
• 1946 – In order to receive a patent one had to be the “first to invent,” in the world. This was amended to “first to invent” within the US. (Storage Battery v. Shimadzu)
• 1954 – Plant Patent Act amended to include seeds, mutants and hybrids.
• 1968 – Patent Cooperation Treaty (PCT) is signed.
• 1975 – Patent Office renamed “The Patent and Trademark Office.”
• 1978 – European Patent Office (EPO) was opened.
• 1980 –
  • Patent fees had to be paid for keeping a patent.
  • Supreme Court grants Patent for genetically engineered bacteria.
• 1981 – Diamond v. Diehr Supreme Court: software algorithms cannot be patented. Merely using a computer does not make an invention non-eligible, however “insignificant postsolution activity will not transform an unpatentable principle into a patentable process″
• 1990 – The definition of patent infringement changed.
• 1995 –
  • United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) opened patent museum.
  • Uruguay Round Agreements Act adopted into order to bring fulfill treaty obligations under the TRIPS agreement of the Uruguay Round. Among other changes, the length of a patent was changed from 17 years after being granted to 20 years after application.
• 1998 – State Street Bank v. Signature Financial: Federal Circuit rules an eligible invention must produce "a useful, concrete and tangible result.".
• 2001 – First official publication of US Patent Application.
• 2008 – In re Bilski, Federal Circuit invention must “transform an article to a different state or thing″, State Street test not to be relied upon
• 2009 – Bilski v. Kappos, Supreme Court, holding that the machine-or-transformation test is not the sole test for determining the patent eligibility of a process
• 2011 – Leahy-Smith America Invents Act is signed into law