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Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from my Heart Radio.

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Speaker 1: Hey there, and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host,

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Speaker 1: Jonathan Strickland. I'm the executive producer of this show and

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Speaker 1: a couple of others, and I love all things tech

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Speaker 1: and it is time for a classic episode of tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: This episode originally published way back on October two thousand

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Speaker 1: and fourteen. It was about a topic that I didn't

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Speaker 1: think when I first started going into it was going

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Speaker 1: to be particularly interesting or have any controversy around it.

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Speaker 1: I was incredibly wrong. This is the sewing machine. Enjoy.

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Speaker 1: We want to talk about patent wars, and we've talked

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Speaker 1: about patent wars on tech Stuff before. Patent wars are

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Speaker 1: when you've got at least two, but sometimes multiple entities

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Speaker 1: all claiming ownership for some kind of technology and competing

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Speaker 1: against each other and sometimes taking each other to court

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Speaker 1: and saying nasty things about each other's moms. And you

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Speaker 1: might think that that's a pretty recent activity, you know,

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Speaker 1: the smartphone, that that's a big patent war, right, lots

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Speaker 1: of modern viciousness around patents. But here's the thing that

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Speaker 1: modern viciousness has a long and detailed history that we

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Speaker 1: can trace back to one of the most important pieces

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Speaker 1: of technology. I am not using hyper bowl people, this

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Speaker 1: is true to me. It's certainly a super important piece

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Speaker 1: of technology. Mean, when you look at when you look

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Speaker 1: at mass production, this is one of the specific pieces

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Speaker 1: of technology that makes mass production possible. I'm talking about

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Speaker 1: sewing machines. So sewing machines, as it turns out, were

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Speaker 1: the focus of one of the first major patent wars.

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Speaker 1: And the story is a complex one, filled with joy

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Speaker 1: and tragedy and a lot of crabbiness and some some stitches,

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Speaker 1: and there's a lot needles, a lot of that. If

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Speaker 1: any of your listeners have listened to the Stephy Maston

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Speaker 1: history class episode on this very thing, a lot of

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Speaker 1: this will be repeat information. Yeah, but it's just so fascinating,

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Speaker 1: how completely similar to modern day arguments over tech, these

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Speaker 1: ones where I mean it's it's it's you can draw

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Speaker 1: direct parallels. I mean, seriously, when you look at a

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Speaker 1: company trying to make a piece of technology as complex essay,

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Speaker 1: a tablet or a smartphone. Now, a tablet or a

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Speaker 1: smartphone by itself is one thing, but it's made up

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Speaker 1: of numerous individual components, some of which may not be

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Speaker 1: owned by one particular entity. The same thing is true

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Speaker 1: with sewing machines, as it turns out, absolutely So before

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Speaker 1: we jump into the sordid history of the sewing machine,

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Speaker 1: I thought I would remind folks what a patent is.

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Speaker 1: What's all about. So patents are that's a set of

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Speaker 1: exclusive rights granted by a government some form of agency

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Speaker 1: that has authority to an inventor or an assigning for

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Speaker 1: the use of an invention. Now, an invention does not

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Speaker 1: have to be a complete thing all by itself. It

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Speaker 1: could be a component of a thing, like if you

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Speaker 1: were to have a full invention. Let's say it's a

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Speaker 1: washing machine, because we've done a tech stuff episode about

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Speaker 1: washing machines, and you come up with a way to

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Speaker 1: improve washing machines so that they wash clothes, uh more

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Speaker 1: thoroughly or without as much bashing around, so the clothing

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Speaker 1: doesn't take as much of a beating. And you come

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Speaker 1: up with that that improvement, and then you patent it.

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Speaker 1: You can do that, that's perfectly acceptable, and then any

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Speaker 1: washing machine that would use that particular improvement would have

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Speaker 1: to either have been made by you or have received

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Speaker 1: your permission to use that specific technology. So patents can

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Speaker 1: be for a full invention with all the different components,

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Speaker 1: or it can be just a tiny little thing that's

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Speaker 1: an improvement. The point of it is the reason why

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Speaker 1: you would want to patent it is that you get

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Speaker 1: those ex elusive rights to use that technology. Now, in

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Speaker 1: return for that, you have to disclose how that technology works.

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Speaker 1: You submit a patent application that has a full description

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Speaker 1: of the mechanism and the purpose of your invention, and

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Speaker 1: that becomes publicly available, and once the patent expires, which

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Speaker 1: they do, anyone can access that information and make use

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Speaker 1: of it. But during the course of that patent, that

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Speaker 1: the lifespan of that patent, it's all you, boss. They

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Speaker 1: got to come through you. Yeah, Although that is an

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Speaker 1: interesting one related to what we're talking about today, because

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Speaker 1: there were several instances on the road to the sewing

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Speaker 1: machine actually becoming a fully fledged thing where there were

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Speaker 1: some FIBs told in the patent filings so that they

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Speaker 1: could keep their proprietary information to themselves, so when people

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Speaker 1: tried to replicate them, they did not always work. Right. See,

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Speaker 1: you could if you wanted to, if you invented something.

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Speaker 1: There's nothing nothing that requires you to get a patent.

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Speaker 1: You could keep it secret and say this magical technology

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Speaker 1: is mine and minal loan. But the danger of that,

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Speaker 1: of course, is if someone gets hold of it and

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Speaker 1: figures out how it works, they could then make the

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Speaker 1: same thing with and you would have no protection. Not

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Speaker 1: only could they make the same thing, they could file

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Speaker 1: a patent for it, and then you would no longer

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Speaker 1: be able to use the thing you invented. Yeah, it's

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Speaker 1: all about first rites. Yeah, so, as it turns out,

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Speaker 1: and we haven't even gotten into the complication of filing

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Speaker 1: for a patent in one country versus filing for a

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Speaker 1: button and another. But we've we've hemmed in hod long

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Speaker 1: enough about patents. Let's start off. Tell me what what

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Speaker 1: was sewing before the sewing machine. Well, most people would

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Speaker 1: probably recognize it if they thought about pre sewing machines sewing,

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Speaker 1: they would think of an needle and thread. But even

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Speaker 1: way before that, there were people using bones and sticks

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Speaker 1: to kind of poke holes into fabrics, usually leathers, and

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Speaker 1: then they would pass a lace through. It was not

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Speaker 1: all one continuous thing where the lace was attached to

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Speaker 1: the the boner stick and then they added the eye

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Speaker 1: that circle that the whatever you're lacing material passes through. Right.

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Speaker 1: The thing that confounds me whenever I have to thread

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Speaker 1: a needle. Many people say that I think he either

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Speaker 1: got it or you don't. I don't got it. Um,

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Speaker 1: I hope I keep it forever, because I have a

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Speaker 1: few friends who are saying are getting to the age

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Speaker 1: and their eyesight isn't letting them keep it anymore. But yeah,

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Speaker 1: so that eventually that I was added and people were

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Speaker 1: able to do it all in one fell swoop where

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Speaker 1: they poked the whole and passed the binding material through,

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Speaker 1: and that also developed things like embroidery. But it wasn't

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Speaker 1: really until the Industrial Revolution that stitching became mechanized. And

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Speaker 1: even pre Industrial Revolution in the mid seventeen hundreds, where

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Speaker 1: kind of industry was first starting to get seated, is

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Speaker 1: really where we started having first people on record actually

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Speaker 1: filing things. Right. So you have Charles Wisenthal here who

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Speaker 1: received a patent for a needle for a sewing machine,

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Speaker 1: but it had a distinct disadvantage and that it was

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Speaker 1: a design for a needle for a machine that didn't exist. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: he just really felt like he had the needle situation

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Speaker 1: where down and eventually the rest would follow. You've got

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Speaker 1: to really nail the needle. Is his approach, which is true.

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Speaker 1: The needle how it came to be where it is

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Speaker 1: today really took a lot of iterations. And his needle

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Speaker 1: had was pointed on both ends, and it had an eye.

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Speaker 1: But the eye was in the middle, which is not

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Speaker 1: If anybody knows a modern sewing machine or hand sewing needle,

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Speaker 1: the eye is usually not in the middle. Right. So

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Speaker 1: then we move forward to we have Thomas st who

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Speaker 1: I love the title of his patents. We talked about

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Speaker 1: this in the history podcast. It's it's so succaint, it's

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Speaker 1: it's so delightful and just completely rebos. Do you want

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Speaker 1: to read it? Let me, let me do this all right?

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Speaker 1: So he's an English cabinet maker, so uh sorry, listeners,

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Speaker 1: Here we go an entire new method of making and

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Speaker 1: completing shoes, boots, splatter, dashes, clogs, and other articles by

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Speaker 1: means and tools, and by means of tools and machines

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Speaker 1: also invented by me for that purpose, and of certain

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Speaker 1: compositions of the nature of japan or varnish, which will

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Speaker 1: be very advantageous in many useful applications. End quote. Don't

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Speaker 1: you just feel like this is sewing as described by

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Speaker 1: a Monty Python sketch. It does feel like John Cleese

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Speaker 1: is the person who needs to deliver that patent title.

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Speaker 1: For me, it's Terry Jones, but we all have our favorite.

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Speaker 1: That's fair. You went more Welsh. That's all right, that's

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Speaker 1: it's fine with that. So he's actually describing three different

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Speaker 1: machines in this patent um. So the second of the three,

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Speaker 1: which is why it's so crazy wordy, I mean Japan

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Speaker 1: and varnish, which are the words used for like these

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Speaker 1: coding um methods have nothing to do with stitching. But

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Speaker 1: he kind of lumped everything together. And he was a

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Speaker 1: cabinet maker. I think maybe he didn't like to file

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Speaker 1: a lot of paper. Yeah, that's probably one of those

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Speaker 1: things where thought, goodness, gracious, this is a lot of work.

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Speaker 1: Let's let's just lump it all together. One very wordy

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Speaker 1: document will cover me. So the second part of his

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Speaker 1: patent was actually the one for stitching, and it really

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Speaker 1: wasn't terribly practical. It had a lot of components that

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Speaker 1: we actually associate with modern sewing machines. So it had

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Speaker 1: arm with the needle, it had a continuous thread from

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Speaker 1: a spool, uh and it had a table set up

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Speaker 1: that the cloth would sit on, and those all still

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Speaker 1: persist in some form or another. But his is a

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Speaker 1: case where there's no actual example of his machine having

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Speaker 1: been built, although in eighteen seventy three Newton Wilson, who

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Speaker 1: was from Great Britain, found the plans and he did

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Speaker 1: build this machine, but it did not work. And this

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Speaker 1: is one of those ones that we talked about a

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Speaker 1: little bit ago, where the suspicion is that he didn't

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Speaker 1: entirely disclose what he was getting, right, leave a few

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Speaker 1: things out of the patent design so that folks don't

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Speaker 1: automatically go out there and actually start making one uh.

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Speaker 1: One thing about patents, by the way, there's no guarantee

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Speaker 1: that your design has to work. It has to it

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Speaker 1: has to be reasonably you know, the people at the

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Speaker 1: patent offices have to reasonably believe that you you believe

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Speaker 1: it will work the way you've designed it. But you

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Speaker 1: don't have to prove. Yeah, there's not a proofing stage design. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: you don't have to bring one in and say, well, here,

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Speaker 1: let me put it in motion and show you that

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Speaker 1: all the parts move the way I've described it in

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Speaker 1: the patent. It really is just meant to prevent other

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Speaker 1: people from making that same design without your permission. All right. Well,

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Speaker 1: then in four we've got this story about Thomas Stone

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Speaker 1: and James Henderson who were issued a patent in France

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Speaker 1: for their own kind of sewing machine. Right. Yeah. It

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Speaker 1: kind of created an overcast stitch. So if you don't

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Speaker 1: know what that is, I do not. Um. If you

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Speaker 1: see like a situation where two pieces of cloth are

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Speaker 1: bound together and there's a stitch that passes through each

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Speaker 1: one and kind of spirals around the edges and then

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Speaker 1: back through, that's an overcast okay, all right, um, so

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Speaker 1: this was similar. It's also called a whip stitch when

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Speaker 1: you do it by hand, so it's very simple. But

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Speaker 1: it could work on all different kinds of fabrics. And

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Speaker 1: it was able to stitch curves. Okay, so it's not

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Speaker 1: just a straight line like some of the other devices

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Speaker 1: will be talking about. Correct, Like a lot of them

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Speaker 1: will only go in a straight line, but this one

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Speaker 1: could handle curves. That The one big drawback of it, though,

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Speaker 1: was that it did not have a continuous thread feed,

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Speaker 1: so there was a lot of stopping and going and

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Speaker 1: re threading of needles and hating. So it saved time,

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Speaker 1: we think theoretically, I say that with a question mark

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Speaker 1: on purpose. Right, maybe it saves time for someone who

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Speaker 1: just really hates the motion of actually making a stitch. Well,

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Speaker 1: or if you're doing like large scale things like leathers

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Speaker 1: and probably help. So that same year you have John

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Speaker 1: Duncan of Glasgow here patenting an embroidery machine, which is

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Speaker 1: not quite the same thing as a stitching machine, correct.

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Speaker 1: I mean it does do stitches, but it's not the

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Speaker 1: same sort of utilitarian things that would hold together pants. Right,

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Speaker 1: we'll just make the pants beautiful. I've learned that through

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Speaker 1: a better experience. In seven we have Edward Walter Chapman

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Speaker 1: and Walter Chapman. It's not confusing at all receiving a

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Speaker 1: British patent three thousand, seventy eight. That's another thing that

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Speaker 1: I think is interesting. You look at the history of

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Speaker 1: sewing machines and you look at those patent numbers. Yeah,

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Speaker 1: and when they're still in the four digit range, that's incredible.

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Speaker 1: If guys go to the patent I'll go to like

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Speaker 1: Google search for patents and look up any patent that's

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Speaker 1: been issued over the last couple of years. We're talking

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Speaker 1: in the millions here, Yeah, and this is when they

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Speaker 1: were still in the thousands, which is pretty incredible. It

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Speaker 1: really does show that the patent industry here was very young.

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Speaker 1: Oh yeah, this was the one that allowed a machine

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Speaker 1: that had a needle that would not have to pass

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Speaker 1: all the way through the fabric. It could just puncture it,

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Speaker 1: uh slightly and then pull back out and make the

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Speaker 1: stitch that way, right, which is how modern machines still

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Speaker 1: were for the most part. I think there's a couple

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Speaker 1: of specialty machines that do different things. But yeah, so

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Speaker 1: it had two needles. One, as you said, punched in

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Speaker 1: and passed the thread down. Another kind of shuttled through

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Speaker 1: it and then it got pulled back up. So um,

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Speaker 1: continuous stitching via these two different thread feeds. Cool. And

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Speaker 1: then we have my favorite name on our list. It's

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Speaker 1: one of my favorites eight thirty. So it's bartelling me Himnier.

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Speaker 1: I love a good French name. Yeah, that's a great one,

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Speaker 1: as there's two th in there, and as I recall,

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Speaker 1: that's a hard tea but I could be wrong. It

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Speaker 1: is it is. And his machine made a chain stitch

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Speaker 1: and there are still machines very similar to this functioning today.

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Speaker 1: They're not used a whole lot because it's one of

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Speaker 1: those things. You may have even come across them periodically.

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Speaker 1: If you ever have, like an article of clothing that's

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Speaker 1: maybe not super pricy, you may be bought it, you know,

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Speaker 1: a cheap store, and you pull one thread and the

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Speaker 1: whole thing starts coming out. That's often a chain stitch

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Speaker 1: because it's the one thread holding everything together, so there's

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Speaker 1: nothing stopping it from continuing to unravel. Right. That's what

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Speaker 1: I always get nervous now whenever I see a loose thread,

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Speaker 1: and I'm more of a snipper than a than a

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Speaker 1: tugger at it. Not I'm a yanker, but I know

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Speaker 1: I can fix it if it all goes a right. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: For me, it's it's fixing means going out and buying

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Speaker 1: a new one. We're gonna pause on our stitching right

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Speaker 1: now with the sewing machine and take a quick break.

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Speaker 1: What I love about this story is it's interesting because

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Speaker 1: it's a real life story that mirrors something that is

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Speaker 1: um a popular misconception. And what I mean by that

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Speaker 1: is in the story you have Tumonier who had a

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Speaker 1: shop in Paris. Uh. He had lots of these different machines,

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Speaker 1: eighty of them working at a time, and Taylor's people

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Speaker 1: who sewed by hand, stormed his store and destroyed some

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Speaker 1: of the machinery because they didn't want to be put

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Speaker 1: out of a job. And the reason why I say

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Speaker 1: this is interesting is that there's a story that we

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Speaker 1: have told on tech stuff before that is erroneous and

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Speaker 1: uh and in fact I have been guilty of of

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Speaker 1: pushing this forward. The idea of sabotage being named after sabo,

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Speaker 1: as in the French word for shoe. The story is

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Speaker 1: that you had often it was told about weavers who

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Speaker 1: came in and threw their shoes into large mechanized looms

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Speaker 1: in order to foul the workings and destroy them. As

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Speaker 1: it turns out, that's not necessarily true. The first the

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Speaker 1: first appearance of the word sabotage doesn't come until in

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Speaker 1: the written word, as far as I can tell, until

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Speaker 1: which tells me that this incident, which happened in around

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Speaker 1: the mid eighteen hundreds, could have given birth to a

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Speaker 1: word involving tailors that would have replaced sabotage, and they

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Speaker 1: just didn't capitalize on it. I want it to include

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Speaker 1: Timonier somehow I got totally Timoniate today at work, walked

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Speaker 1: in and they just ambushed me. Yeah. So they came

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Speaker 1: and destroyed his shop and he had to flee. And

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Speaker 1: he did give financial backing, uh so that he could

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Speaker 1: continue his work and develop new machines. But unfortunately, uh

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Speaker 1: and he got some additional patents as well, both in

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Speaker 1: France and and Britain. But the revolution kind of caused

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Speaker 1: his legacy to get put on the back burner. Yet

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Speaker 1: there were some important things that people were attending to

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Speaker 1: at the time. Yeah, not so much with the let's

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Speaker 1: make machines. Now, we've got an American inventor coming up next,

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Speaker 1: so let's just take a moment to go America. Well,

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Speaker 1: and he becomes very important in the patent battles. So

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Speaker 1: this is Walter Hunt you're talking about here. Yeah. So

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Speaker 1: he made a machine that it created a lock stitch.

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Speaker 1: It used to thread sources, very similar to the bobbing

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Speaker 1: and school method you would see modern machines. Um and

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Speaker 1: this you know, of course, was different than the single

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Speaker 1: thread chain stitch of Timoni. A successful machines and he

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Speaker 1: kind of was a busy bee he had a lot

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Speaker 1: of inventions going at the same time, and so it

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Speaker 1: wasn't like this sewing machine was his baby and he

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Speaker 1: had really put his heart and soul into it. He

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Speaker 1: was kind of like, no, no, he's ever gonna be

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Speaker 1: interested in this, and he sold it. So he sold

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Speaker 1: the patent off to he didn't even have the patent.

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Speaker 1: He just I go, that's right, he didn't even patent

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Speaker 1: this invention. He's like, yeah, I could use the money.

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Speaker 1: He sold it to a man named George a aerosmith

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Speaker 1: and was basically like, yeah, well, you know, I'll fund

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Speaker 1: some other projects with whatever I make off of this.

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Speaker 1: It's not that important. Um. As we said, he comes

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Speaker 1: up later and becomes very important to remember him. And

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Speaker 1: we'll also point out his machine was one that Jonathan

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Speaker 1: referenced earlier that would only go in straight lines. You

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Speaker 1: couldn't really work curves with it, right, so that that

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Speaker 1: certainly limits its usefulness. Uh. Now, we also have to

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Speaker 1: acknowledge the fact that there's a challenge in really talking

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Speaker 1: about the history of the sewing machine because of an

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Speaker 1: event that happened in that the mid eighteen hundreds, early

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Speaker 1: to mid eighteen hundreds. Yeah, we had a little bit

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Speaker 1: of a fire in the patent office. Yeah, as it

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Speaker 1: turns out, patents are flammable. Yes, some one had patented

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Speaker 1: the the the not the inflammable that would also be flammable,

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Speaker 1: but the impossible to burn patent. Yeah, And it wasn't

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Speaker 1: a time where they were making tons of backups. It

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Speaker 1: was kind of like you find ELLT and you go

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Speaker 1: on your way. Because we're still in the thousands. They

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Speaker 1: haven't really gotten their game figured out yet, right, not

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Speaker 1: to mention the fact that they're making Making duplicates is

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Speaker 1: no easy task at this time, so they thought, well,

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Speaker 1: it's safe enough. Yeah, that fire was in eighteen thirty six,

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Speaker 1: so they really did not have a plan in place

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Speaker 1: to keep duplicate copies. And as a consequence, there are

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Speaker 1: actually a lot some sources will say that there are

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Speaker 1: a lot of kind of partial patent documents that still

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Speaker 1: exists that like they mentioned a needle, or they mentioned

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Speaker 1: something sewing related, but like the attribution portion of the

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Speaker 1: document has been too damaged and they don't know who

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Speaker 1: filed it. So there could be families out there that

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Speaker 1: could have, for all we know, inherited great wealth. But

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Speaker 1: we'll never know because the capriciousness of fire robbed them

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Speaker 1: of their place in history. Fire and it's ways possibly

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Speaker 1: on Martha's vineyard. In eighteen forty two, we've got John J. Greenoff,

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Speaker 1: who is the first guy, first American, to get a

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Speaker 1: patent for the sewing machine that we have a record

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Speaker 1: of anyway. Um, so even though he made his invention

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Speaker 1: after Hunt had, Hunt had not patented it, and as

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Speaker 1: you have in your notes here, the aerosmith apparently never

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Speaker 1: got around the patenting it either. So, uh, this is

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Speaker 1: the first one in the American patent system. Yeah, he

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Speaker 1: there was no replication of his He basically kind of

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Speaker 1: was one and done. Yes, So he made a prototype

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Speaker 1: and then not a production model. Yeah, there's we don't

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Speaker 1: know if he didn't get funding or if he just

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Speaker 1: abandoned the idea and moved on to something else. But

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Speaker 1: it was only a year later when the second U. S.

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Speaker 1: Patent for a sewing machine came about, and that was

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Speaker 1: issued to Benjamin W. Bean, which is a great name,

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Speaker 1: I know. Um, and he created a unique development and

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Speaker 1: that his machine was the first that actually fed the

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Speaker 1: fabrics through gears. So for the stitchers in the house,

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Speaker 1: all three of us, um that's similar to feed dogs,

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Speaker 1: and if you don't stitch, what a feed dog is.

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Speaker 1: If you've ever looked at a sewing machine, you may

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Speaker 1: see these two. They almost looked like little feet that

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Speaker 1: come up and kind of kick at your fabric as

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Speaker 1: you're showing, and they have rigid edges and that's kind

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Speaker 1: of pulling your fabric through as you go right, so

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Speaker 1: you don't have to put through as much effort, you

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Speaker 1: don't have to worry about misguiding the fabric. So it

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Speaker 1: helps feed the fabric through as you're stitching. Yes, sometimes

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Speaker 1: it creates great drama and it eats fabric, but not

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Speaker 1: very often. Um and his also had a clamp mechanism

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Speaker 1: to attach it to a table, so that was also

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Speaker 1: a new development. Uh, and there are still machines made

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Speaker 1: to do that. Also that year, in eighteen forty three,

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Speaker 1: we got George H. Corliss, who uh you know, he

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Speaker 1: was also a busy body making making a steam engine.

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Speaker 1: That's pretty cool. We did a full episode in Tech

387
00:20:41,600 --> 00:20:44,040
Speaker 1: Stuff on steam engine. So if you guys are are

388
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Speaker 1: big into that and you really want to know about

389
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Speaker 1: the development of the steam engine, here's a here's an

390
00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:51,520
Speaker 1: interesting little fact. The original steam engines didn't push with steam.

391
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Speaker 1: They rather would pull by letting steam condense and create

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Speaker 1: a vacuum, thus pulling a piston down rather than pushing

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Speaker 1: a piston out. But we go into full detail and

394
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Speaker 1: tech stuff, so I don't need to redo the whole thing.

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Speaker 1: It is exciting, it's actually not cool, it's actually quite hot,

396
00:21:09,080 --> 00:21:13,480
Speaker 1: but but ump up. So Cordless had what's considered the

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Speaker 1: third u S sewing machine patents. His performed what is

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Speaker 1: called a saddle stitch, which is a specialized stitch that's

399
00:21:20,440 --> 00:21:23,520
Speaker 1: used to this day to join leather together. Uh, it

400
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Speaker 1: kind of keeps it all stable. If anybody has ever

401
00:21:25,840 --> 00:21:27,520
Speaker 1: tried to sew with leather, if you've had like a

402
00:21:27,600 --> 00:21:32,280
Speaker 1: leather pouch or anything, Uh, it can present some challenges

403
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Speaker 1: in terms of how it because it's so rugged usually

404
00:21:36,359 --> 00:21:38,640
Speaker 1: and tough, it will chew on threads and or even

405
00:21:38,680 --> 00:21:41,120
Speaker 1: if you have a lacing, the lacing even though it's leather,

406
00:21:41,160 --> 00:21:43,359
Speaker 1: also we'll kind of get chewed up over time. So

407
00:21:43,400 --> 00:21:46,320
Speaker 1: a saddle stitch kind of gives you a tighter stitch

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Speaker 1: and it prevents some of that friction. Okay, cool, And

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Speaker 1: then also just a year later in eighteen forty four,

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Speaker 1: we've got James Rogers getting the fourth US sewing machine pad.

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Speaker 1: And you may all wonder why we're covering every single patent.

412
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Speaker 1: The Patent Wars will make all clear. Everybody's gonna be

413
00:22:04,400 --> 00:22:08,680
Speaker 1: really apparent, and it's it's it's important because again we're

414
00:22:08,760 --> 00:22:11,640
Speaker 1: trying to illustrate the fact that a lot of these

415
00:22:11,760 --> 00:22:17,080
Speaker 1: patents were not revolutionary devices that completely reinvented the machine.

416
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Speaker 1: They were sometimes incremental improvements that had a remarkable difference

417
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Speaker 1: from earlier machines, but it was one tiny element, right,

418
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Speaker 1: not necessarily a full reworking. Yeah. So yeah, James Rogers

419
00:22:31,080 --> 00:22:34,720
Speaker 1: patent was really only had a tiny change to beans design,

420
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Speaker 1: and that was that the gears were kind of in

421
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Speaker 1: a different place and that allowed him to be able

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Speaker 1: to design a different needle that was shaped a little

423
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Speaker 1: more simply and would be easier to replicate. Um. And

424
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Speaker 1: so pretty much every patent that came after this used

425
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Speaker 1: this simpler set up that built on Bean's design, So

426
00:22:54,119 --> 00:22:57,199
Speaker 1: it really set a precedent here. But now we're going

427
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Speaker 1: to the star of the show. Okay, who's the star

428
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Speaker 1: of the show because not being a big sewing machine guy,

429
00:23:03,960 --> 00:23:07,120
Speaker 1: but you watch Schoolhouse Rock growing Up? Right, I did

430
00:23:07,280 --> 00:23:10,160
Speaker 1: he was in it? Was he? Yeah, in some mother

431
00:23:10,240 --> 00:23:15,359
Speaker 1: Necessity episode. I'll have to go watch my DVDs. Alias

432
00:23:15,480 --> 00:23:18,479
Speaker 1: can you help me with my sewing? So it's an

433
00:23:18,520 --> 00:23:22,879
Speaker 1: alias here. We're talking about Elias Howe Jr. All right,

434
00:23:22,960 --> 00:23:24,639
Speaker 1: And there's even a play on his name where he

435
00:23:24,680 --> 00:23:27,400
Speaker 1: tells her he's gonna fix everything and she says alias

436
00:23:27,480 --> 00:23:31,080
Speaker 1: how And it's very witty to the sewing nerds in right,

437
00:23:31,720 --> 00:23:36,840
Speaker 1: all three of your three of us. So Elias how

438
00:23:37,119 --> 00:23:42,320
Speaker 1: was born in Spencer, Massachusetts in eighteen nineteen. Uh, and

439
00:23:42,600 --> 00:23:45,159
Speaker 1: when he was a teenager, he decided to go and

440
00:23:45,200 --> 00:23:47,959
Speaker 1: seek his fortune as a machinist, which was a brand

441
00:23:47,960 --> 00:23:51,120
Speaker 1: new job in the Industrial Revolution. Yeah, he was kind

442
00:23:51,119 --> 00:23:53,200
Speaker 1: of he had some bravado. He was not afraid of

443
00:23:53,320 --> 00:23:55,399
Speaker 1: kind of breaking out on his own and making his

444
00:23:55,440 --> 00:23:57,560
Speaker 1: way in the world. He certainly didn't appear to be

445
00:23:57,600 --> 00:24:00,320
Speaker 1: shy once we get into that. Noars, Oh, he was

446
00:24:00,359 --> 00:24:04,640
Speaker 1: a very smart man. Yeah, so he's going to Uh

447
00:24:04,680 --> 00:24:08,439
Speaker 1: he ends up as a machinist overhearing some talk about

448
00:24:09,160 --> 00:24:12,760
Speaker 1: the idea of of a sewing machine and starts to

449
00:24:12,800 --> 00:24:17,840
Speaker 1: kind of apply his own ingenuity. How would I achieve

450
00:24:18,000 --> 00:24:21,600
Speaker 1: this sort of thing. So he's important to remember, yeah,

451
00:24:21,640 --> 00:24:24,159
Speaker 1: and he um So, he was granted the fifth U S.

452
00:24:24,200 --> 00:24:28,000
Speaker 1: Patent in September of eighteen six. And it's one of

453
00:24:28,000 --> 00:24:29,760
Speaker 1: those things that I have to laugh because every year

454
00:24:29,800 --> 00:24:32,840
Speaker 1: when September comes around, you see the today on this day,

455
00:24:32,960 --> 00:24:35,240
Speaker 1: Elias how invented the sewing machine, and I'm like, back

456
00:24:35,320 --> 00:24:37,800
Speaker 1: up the truck. Not entirely accurate, right, It's like like

457
00:24:37,920 --> 00:24:39,960
Speaker 1: you know Edison invented the light bulb, all right, No,

458
00:24:40,240 --> 00:24:43,439
Speaker 1: as an improved and not a Eureka moment where it

459
00:24:43,480 --> 00:24:46,280
Speaker 1: comes from nowhere, although he did sometimes say that like

460
00:24:46,400 --> 00:24:49,440
Speaker 1: he had it kind of fully universally on his own.

461
00:24:49,520 --> 00:24:53,199
Speaker 1: That's very tesla like to Yeah. Um so, this was

462
00:24:53,280 --> 00:24:56,639
Speaker 1: patent number four thousand, seven fifty in the United States,

463
00:24:56,640 --> 00:24:58,400
Speaker 1: you know, the previous one we gave. The number two

464
00:24:58,440 --> 00:25:01,080
Speaker 1: was the British patent. So and in both cases you

465
00:25:01,119 --> 00:25:04,360
Speaker 1: see that these are very very early on during the

466
00:25:04,480 --> 00:25:07,199
Speaker 1: patent offices existence. Yeah, they're numbering schemes were kind of

467
00:25:07,200 --> 00:25:09,000
Speaker 1: neck and neck in terms of where they were at

468
00:25:09,000 --> 00:25:13,920
Speaker 1: in terms of um uh accession order. Um So, this

469
00:25:14,000 --> 00:25:16,560
Speaker 1: patent was actually his second version of the machine that

470
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,960
Speaker 1: he patented. He had another prototype a year before that

471
00:25:20,160 --> 00:25:23,840
Speaker 1: was capable of sewing, but he um, he fine tuned

472
00:25:23,880 --> 00:25:26,360
Speaker 1: it a little bit more. And house patent is very

473
00:25:26,400 --> 00:25:31,560
Speaker 1: important because it makes five very specific claims about how

474
00:25:31,600 --> 00:25:34,679
Speaker 1: the machine is going to work, and they come up

475
00:25:34,680 --> 00:25:38,600
Speaker 1: a lot in court battles like yeah, so this is

476
00:25:38,600 --> 00:25:41,280
Speaker 1: where I was talking about how you can make claims

477
00:25:41,359 --> 00:25:45,199
Speaker 1: within a patent and those claims will protect elements of

478
00:25:45,240 --> 00:25:50,760
Speaker 1: your invention. And claims can be everything from specific physical

479
00:25:51,240 --> 00:25:56,119
Speaker 1: uh mechanical ways that the machine works to UH specific

480
00:25:56,440 --> 00:26:00,439
Speaker 1: method like an implementation. We see that to day in

481
00:26:00,520 --> 00:26:03,920
Speaker 1: ways that are are less um. They're they're more difficult

482
00:26:03,920 --> 00:26:06,920
Speaker 1: to understand because if you're talking about a physical machine,

483
00:26:07,440 --> 00:26:10,320
Speaker 1: you can say the physical machine does it in this way,

484
00:26:10,440 --> 00:26:12,920
Speaker 1: and you can see whether or not the machine is

485
00:26:12,960 --> 00:26:15,240
Speaker 1: actually doing it in that way. When we talk about today,

486
00:26:15,280 --> 00:26:19,080
Speaker 1: we're talking about stuff like you know, resizing images by

487
00:26:19,119 --> 00:26:22,960
Speaker 1: pinching or or moving your fingers further apart from each other,

488
00:26:23,520 --> 00:26:26,600
Speaker 1: and it starts to get a little wibbly wobbly time

489
00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:29,880
Speaker 1: you whiney when you are trying to say, oh, well,

490
00:26:29,920 --> 00:26:33,280
Speaker 1: this is this is a method that is unique that

491
00:26:33,359 --> 00:26:35,159
Speaker 1: I came up with and no one else can use

492
00:26:35,160 --> 00:26:38,159
Speaker 1: it unless they come through me. That's uh, it's one

493
00:26:38,160 --> 00:26:40,760
Speaker 1: of those evolutions of the patent office that we're still

494
00:26:40,760 --> 00:26:44,560
Speaker 1: trying to kind of reconcile. Yeah, it's not all black

495
00:26:44,600 --> 00:26:46,520
Speaker 1: and white, which is why you get into these huge

496
00:26:46,520 --> 00:26:48,959
Speaker 1: battles and arguments and things go to court and you

497
00:26:49,000 --> 00:26:51,920
Speaker 1: hear about Apple having to pay money, but then Samsung

498
00:26:52,000 --> 00:26:54,600
Speaker 1: has to pay all the money, right, Yeah, and sometimes

499
00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:58,120
Speaker 1: it just sometimes everyone just ends up like, well, let's

500
00:26:58,119 --> 00:26:59,840
Speaker 1: just all say we gave each other the money when

501
00:26:59,840 --> 00:27:03,680
Speaker 1: we supposed to call today. But anyway, there were these

502
00:27:03,720 --> 00:27:06,360
Speaker 1: five elements. Did you want to cover any of them?

503
00:27:06,600 --> 00:27:08,880
Speaker 1: You have all of them written out here they are,

504
00:27:09,000 --> 00:27:11,159
Speaker 1: and they're written out long because I cut and pasted

505
00:27:11,200 --> 00:27:13,320
Speaker 1: it from another document, but I'll kind of do the

506
00:27:13,720 --> 00:27:17,199
Speaker 1: short version. So the first was he describes how he's

507
00:27:17,200 --> 00:27:20,399
Speaker 1: going to form a seam by using a curve needle

508
00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:23,639
Speaker 1: to go through the cloth and um a bobbin to

509
00:27:23,800 --> 00:27:27,040
Speaker 1: kind of connect to that and and make the stitch,

510
00:27:27,240 --> 00:27:30,119
Speaker 1: similar to how we've talked about before this to thread version.

511
00:27:30,680 --> 00:27:32,520
Speaker 1: The second is how the thread is going to get

512
00:27:32,560 --> 00:27:35,119
Speaker 1: lifted and passed through the needle eye. There's a lifting

513
00:27:35,200 --> 00:27:39,480
Speaker 1: rod involved. That's very important. The third is how the

514
00:27:39,520 --> 00:27:42,679
Speaker 1: thread is going to be passed out by the shuttle,

515
00:27:42,800 --> 00:27:44,199
Speaker 1: so it has a lot to do with the tension

516
00:27:44,280 --> 00:27:47,919
Speaker 1: and how it passes through at a consistent rate. The

517
00:27:47,960 --> 00:27:52,080
Speaker 1: fourth is um how a couple of levers go together

518
00:27:52,720 --> 00:27:56,480
Speaker 1: and enact. They're sort of mechanisms on the string or

519
00:27:56,480 --> 00:27:59,879
Speaker 1: the thread that's involved. And the fifth is how the

520
00:28:00,080 --> 00:28:03,959
Speaker 1: cloth is held in place by a baster plate, uh,

521
00:28:04,320 --> 00:28:06,919
Speaker 1: which is still a thing that happens like now, if

522
00:28:06,960 --> 00:28:09,320
Speaker 1: you drop your foot down on your machine, it's kind

523
00:28:09,359 --> 00:28:11,679
Speaker 1: of pressing the cloth onto the plate of your machine.

524
00:28:11,960 --> 00:28:13,639
Speaker 1: That's that keeps it from going just flying away when

525
00:28:13,680 --> 00:28:16,440
Speaker 1: you're trying to stitch on it very important as I

526
00:28:16,520 --> 00:28:19,680
Speaker 1: understand it, in the sewing process. Yes, most machines made

527
00:28:19,680 --> 00:28:22,159
Speaker 1: today won't won't stitch at all if you don't have

528
00:28:22,200 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 1: to press your foot down because they know they'll just

529
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:28,560
Speaker 1: be wasting everyone's time. So how didn't meet with immediate

530
00:28:28,600 --> 00:28:32,639
Speaker 1: success with this design? Actually, he tried for a while

531
00:28:32,840 --> 00:28:35,639
Speaker 1: to get people here in the United States excited about it,

532
00:28:36,080 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 1: and no one seemed to really give him much attention.

533
00:28:38,680 --> 00:28:43,440
Speaker 1: So he ended up selling the patent rights to a

534
00:28:44,560 --> 00:28:46,560
Speaker 1: or at least the British patent rights, I should say

535
00:28:46,600 --> 00:28:51,200
Speaker 1: to William Thomas for the princely sum of two fifty

536
00:28:51,280 --> 00:28:55,240
Speaker 1: British pounds sterling. Uh and uh, I like, I like

537
00:28:55,320 --> 00:28:57,640
Speaker 1: the other. Note here he also adapted his machine to

538
00:28:57,680 --> 00:29:02,440
Speaker 1: make umbrellas and corsets. That's fabulous. Yeah, I mean, I'm

539
00:29:02,480 --> 00:29:04,920
Speaker 1: in the market. We're both right now. So well, when

540
00:29:04,920 --> 00:29:08,120
Speaker 1: we talked about this on History, Tracy was saying, I

541
00:29:08,160 --> 00:29:10,360
Speaker 1: never thought about it before, but umbrella's, in course, it's

542
00:29:10,360 --> 00:29:13,000
Speaker 1: really are quite a lot alike. And that you know,

543
00:29:13,040 --> 00:29:16,200
Speaker 1: you have a casing and you have these rigid elements

544
00:29:16,240 --> 00:29:18,280
Speaker 1: that passed through it and hold it all in shape.

545
00:29:18,400 --> 00:29:20,160
Speaker 1: And at this point it would have been all steelbone,

546
00:29:20,200 --> 00:29:22,920
Speaker 1: course tree. So it was very similar to an umbrella, right,

547
00:29:23,080 --> 00:29:26,520
Speaker 1: except that the main difference, at least in my experience,

548
00:29:26,760 --> 00:29:30,320
Speaker 1: is that it's a relief to have an umbrella and

549
00:29:30,360 --> 00:29:32,520
Speaker 1: a relief to get rid of a corset. So don't

550
00:29:32,560 --> 00:29:34,280
Speaker 1: get it started. Of course, it's are good for you

551
00:29:34,320 --> 00:29:36,960
Speaker 1: if they're well fitted. They protect your back, they give

552
00:29:37,000 --> 00:29:39,640
Speaker 1: you a great posture. Those tight lasers are a whole

553
00:29:39,640 --> 00:29:42,600
Speaker 1: different universe. Yeah. I worked at the Georgia Renaissance Festival

554
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:47,720
Speaker 1: so I have a very specific experience of watching ladies. Know,

555
00:29:47,920 --> 00:29:51,680
Speaker 1: a good foundation courset will keep your clothes in place.

556
00:29:51,760 --> 00:29:53,920
Speaker 1: It holds up all those Victorian layers if it's a

557
00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:56,120
Speaker 1: Victorian courset. So I'm kind of going from the time

558
00:29:56,120 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 1: period we're talking about. They're they're not mystery torture devices.

559
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:01,880
Speaker 1: Well really, we're not intended for that. You will clearly

560
00:30:01,920 --> 00:30:03,480
Speaker 1: need to have you come in and give a talk

561
00:30:04,200 --> 00:30:06,600
Speaker 1: because because those ladies, let me tell there is a

562
00:30:06,600 --> 00:30:09,840
Speaker 1: lot of technology and physics and a courset either got

563
00:30:09,840 --> 00:30:13,120
Speaker 1: to support from below or from above. It's fabulous. Well,

564
00:30:13,240 --> 00:30:16,840
Speaker 1: moving on in the the evolution of the sewing machine,

565
00:30:16,920 --> 00:30:20,800
Speaker 1: we move up to and the sixth US sewing machine

566
00:30:20,840 --> 00:30:27,160
Speaker 1: patent from John A. Bradshaw, which was a little bit snarky. Yeah,

567
00:30:27,200 --> 00:30:30,760
Speaker 1: he talks about How's patent design in his patent and

568
00:30:30,920 --> 00:30:33,960
Speaker 1: kind of says that it's bungling and it's an incumbrance

569
00:30:34,000 --> 00:30:36,000
Speaker 1: to the action of the machine when he talks about

570
00:30:36,000 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: the needle. So not only can How not get manufacturers

571
00:30:40,240 --> 00:30:44,360
Speaker 1: interested in his device, he has the next UH patent

572
00:30:45,000 --> 00:30:49,920
Speaker 1: UH petitioner completely dis him, totally trash in his work

573
00:30:50,000 --> 00:30:52,360
Speaker 1: even while he's building on it. He's still kind of

574
00:30:52,360 --> 00:30:54,760
Speaker 1: like he was onto something, but I really have this

575
00:30:54,800 --> 00:30:57,520
Speaker 1: thing figured out, Like, okay, well I can tell you

576
00:30:57,560 --> 00:31:01,240
Speaker 1: why it didn't do great with the manufacturers. Wonderful. So

577
00:31:01,400 --> 00:31:05,560
Speaker 1: eighteen nine we get how coming back to the United States, Uh,

578
00:31:05,600 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 1: he had gone to England, like we said to say,

579
00:31:08,400 --> 00:31:12,240
Speaker 1: to sell the British patent off. And when he comes

580
00:31:12,280 --> 00:31:15,480
Speaker 1: back he sees that that that what had been kind

581
00:31:15,480 --> 00:31:19,120
Speaker 1: of a quiet, little tiny niche industry was starting to

582
00:31:19,160 --> 00:31:23,360
Speaker 1: take off. Yeah. The seventh patent for the sewing machine

583
00:31:23,360 --> 00:31:25,800
Speaker 1: have been issued to Charles Morey and Joseph B. Johnson

584
00:31:25,800 --> 00:31:29,040
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty nine, and they were really some of

585
00:31:29,080 --> 00:31:30,760
Speaker 1: the first two that were like, we need to start

586
00:31:30,760 --> 00:31:32,480
Speaker 1: selling this and making a bunch of them. And even

587
00:31:32,480 --> 00:31:35,880
Speaker 1: before they received their patent, they were selling machine, which

588
00:31:35,920 --> 00:31:38,280
Speaker 1: is perfectly fine. I mean, it's not like you don't

589
00:31:38,320 --> 00:31:40,360
Speaker 1: have to have a In fact, you often we'll see

590
00:31:40,680 --> 00:31:44,160
Speaker 1: today things like patent pending where people are trying to

591
00:31:44,240 --> 00:31:49,280
Speaker 1: capitalize on an idea because patent applications and patent grants

592
00:31:49,320 --> 00:31:52,680
Speaker 1: can take a long time, especially today now that you

593
00:31:52,800 --> 00:31:58,440
Speaker 1: have uh an exponentially larger number of applications coming into

594
00:31:58,440 --> 00:32:00,520
Speaker 1: the patent ofvice than you did way back in the

595
00:32:00,560 --> 00:32:04,280
Speaker 1: mid eighteen hundreds. Yeah, there were some other people that

596
00:32:04,320 --> 00:32:08,320
Speaker 1: were trying to improve on Marie and Johnson's machine in

597
00:32:08,360 --> 00:32:10,480
Speaker 1: the middle of eighteen forty nine. So that same year

598
00:32:10,520 --> 00:32:13,960
Speaker 1: they got their patent, there was a man named Jotham

599
00:32:14,000 --> 00:32:17,720
Speaker 1: s Conan, and he was issued a patent based on

600
00:32:17,760 --> 00:32:20,360
Speaker 1: a modification he made to their machine which just kind

601
00:32:20,360 --> 00:32:22,200
Speaker 1: of altered the way that the cloth was held during

602
00:32:22,200 --> 00:32:25,520
Speaker 1: the stitching. But his never really went anywhere. He didn't manufacture,

603
00:32:25,560 --> 00:32:29,440
Speaker 1: he didn't sell. But that same day that he got

604
00:32:29,480 --> 00:32:33,800
Speaker 1: his patent, another important person was getting a patent, John

605
00:32:33,840 --> 00:32:38,160
Speaker 1: Batch Elder. So yeah, this was the continuous sewing mechanism

606
00:32:38,320 --> 00:32:41,560
Speaker 1: and at an endless belt to feed the cloth into

607
00:32:41,560 --> 00:32:47,239
Speaker 1: the machine. Yeah, thank you John, to make sure that

608
00:32:47,280 --> 00:32:49,920
Speaker 1: you don't have to put in all that work yourself. Yeah,

609
00:32:50,000 --> 00:32:53,200
Speaker 1: But the really important thing is who Batch Elder sold

610
00:32:53,240 --> 00:32:55,880
Speaker 1: his patent too. And here we come up to the

611
00:32:56,040 --> 00:33:02,320
Speaker 1: first name in this podcast that I recognize. I am

612
00:33:02,920 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: Singer the Singer sewing machine. Everybody knows that well, I mean,

613
00:33:08,320 --> 00:33:12,040
Speaker 1: you know, my my my grandmother and my my mom

614
00:33:12,080 --> 00:33:16,040
Speaker 1: both had Singer sewing machines. In fact, that there's the

615
00:33:16,120 --> 00:33:18,880
Speaker 1: both of them still exist. And my parents it's as

616
00:33:18,880 --> 00:33:21,760
Speaker 1: it's like a little uh table that's next to the

617
00:33:21,800 --> 00:33:25,160
Speaker 1: front door of their house. But it's an old singer

618
00:33:25,200 --> 00:33:30,000
Speaker 1: sewing machine that that's operated by by pedal. Uh So, yeah,

619
00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:32,920
Speaker 1: it's it's the one of those names that I think

620
00:33:32,920 --> 00:33:35,640
Speaker 1: most people associate it with sewing pretty quick. Yeah, yeah,

621
00:33:35,640 --> 00:33:38,320
Speaker 1: because I mean it's still a name. So yep, they're

622
00:33:38,320 --> 00:33:39,960
Speaker 1: still making. You don't hear about a lot of how

623
00:33:40,040 --> 00:33:42,800
Speaker 1: machines these days, but the singers still going. So now

624
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:45,640
Speaker 1: we're to the argument phase. It's time for us to

625
00:33:45,640 --> 00:33:48,040
Speaker 1: take another quick break, but we'll be back with more

626
00:33:48,160 --> 00:33:58,400
Speaker 1: about the sewing machine in just a moment. We finally

627
00:33:58,440 --> 00:34:01,120
Speaker 1: reached the point now where things have come to ahead.

628
00:34:01,160 --> 00:34:05,120
Speaker 1: We've got the the snippy little patent applications out of

629
00:34:05,160 --> 00:34:07,400
Speaker 1: the way. Now it's time to really get down to

630
00:34:07,680 --> 00:34:13,879
Speaker 1: fisticuffs legally speaking. And uh it's the eighteen fifties where

631
00:34:13,920 --> 00:34:17,640
Speaker 1: we get that first enormous patent war. And it all

632
00:34:17,640 --> 00:34:20,360
Speaker 1: has to do with the fact that these different little

633
00:34:20,400 --> 00:34:23,440
Speaker 1: elements that have been improved upon over time, there were

634
00:34:23,440 --> 00:34:27,040
Speaker 1: a lot of arguments about who actually had ownership of

635
00:34:27,040 --> 00:34:32,000
Speaker 1: those ideas and in what implementations and who was owed

636
00:34:32,080 --> 00:34:35,360
Speaker 1: money by whom, and it got ugly, really really ugly.

637
00:34:35,600 --> 00:34:38,680
Speaker 1: So there was a a man by the name of

638
00:34:38,719 --> 00:34:41,600
Speaker 1: Allen B. Wilson, and he in eighteen fifty was working

639
00:34:41,600 --> 00:34:45,400
Speaker 1: on this lock stitch machine very similar to the modern machine,

640
00:34:45,840 --> 00:34:49,160
Speaker 1: and his mechanism could also go forward and backwards, which

641
00:34:49,160 --> 00:34:52,480
Speaker 1: we had not encountered before. Uh. And he applied for

642
00:34:52,560 --> 00:34:55,359
Speaker 1: his patent. He had made a second prototype model, and

643
00:34:55,400 --> 00:34:57,640
Speaker 1: the people that owned the brand shop patent from eight

644
00:34:58,719 --> 00:35:00,760
Speaker 1: got wind of this, and we're like, hold on a minute.

645
00:35:00,840 --> 00:35:04,439
Speaker 1: For four Uh, we owned some of the concepts you're using.

646
00:35:04,600 --> 00:35:06,920
Speaker 1: The double pointed shuttle that made up a part of

647
00:35:06,960 --> 00:35:10,919
Speaker 1: his machine was something that was part of their patent, uh,

648
00:35:10,960 --> 00:35:14,160
Speaker 1: they claimed, And that claim was not accurate. It was

649
00:35:14,239 --> 00:35:17,759
Speaker 1: complete bunk. So however, they think, well, let's throw a

650
00:35:17,800 --> 00:35:21,680
Speaker 1: wrench into this one. However, they had dollars and Wilson didn't,

651
00:35:21,680 --> 00:35:24,680
Speaker 1: so he could not fight them. So we get down

652
00:35:24,719 --> 00:35:29,280
Speaker 1: to using the old idea of well, if if we can't,

653
00:35:29,440 --> 00:35:32,640
Speaker 1: if we can't suppress this idea, one way, we can

654
00:35:32,680 --> 00:35:34,640
Speaker 1: just kind of run them out because we've got we've

655
00:35:34,640 --> 00:35:40,120
Speaker 1: got a larger reserve of cash. Yes, so, uh, he

656
00:35:40,200 --> 00:35:42,200
Speaker 1: had to give up half of his claim to a

657
00:35:42,320 --> 00:35:44,600
Speaker 1: P Kline and Edward Lee, who at that point held

658
00:35:45,000 --> 00:35:50,080
Speaker 1: the Bradshaw patent, and that was in late November, and

659
00:35:50,120 --> 00:35:52,200
Speaker 1: then after a little while he just sold them the

660
00:35:52,239 --> 00:35:54,320
Speaker 1: rest of his interest. He didn't want to mess with

661
00:35:54,360 --> 00:35:57,279
Speaker 1: it anymore. He retained very limited rights. That's a very

662
00:35:57,320 --> 00:36:00,399
Speaker 1: sad story there, where essentially he was beaten down. Yeah,

663
00:36:00,480 --> 00:36:03,160
Speaker 1: he really had the goods in terms of his invention

664
00:36:03,640 --> 00:36:06,640
Speaker 1: to have been the singer of this story in terms

665
00:36:06,680 --> 00:36:09,279
Speaker 1: of name recognition, but because he just didn't have the

666
00:36:09,280 --> 00:36:11,920
Speaker 1: means to fight anybody that made a claim against him

667
00:36:12,120 --> 00:36:15,000
Speaker 1: and vanished into history and to repsalt into the wound,

668
00:36:15,600 --> 00:36:19,800
Speaker 1: they would use his name in official advertisements. Yeah, people

669
00:36:19,920 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 1: recognize that he had invented something really pretty exciting because

670
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:26,880
Speaker 1: it could do these things that previous machines couldn't, And

671
00:36:26,920 --> 00:36:30,480
Speaker 1: so their advertisements went a by Wilson's sewing Machine, the

672
00:36:30,520 --> 00:36:33,880
Speaker 1: best and only practical sewing machine not larger than a

673
00:36:33,960 --> 00:36:37,560
Speaker 1: lady's workbox, for the trifling sum of thirty five dollars.

674
00:36:37,600 --> 00:36:41,120
Speaker 1: So not only does he not get the benefit of

675
00:36:41,200 --> 00:36:44,799
Speaker 1: actually owning this device that he invented, he then has

676
00:36:44,840 --> 00:36:48,120
Speaker 1: the indignity of having his name used in the advertising

677
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:50,719
Speaker 1: while this other company makes money off of it. Yeah,

678
00:36:50,719 --> 00:36:53,759
Speaker 1: he really did get shafted. So meanwhile, we've got to

679
00:36:53,800 --> 00:36:58,280
Speaker 1: lie as How who He's no dummy, No, he's witnessing

680
00:36:58,320 --> 00:37:01,160
Speaker 1: this and realizing some stuff is going down. Maybe I

681
00:37:01,200 --> 00:37:03,279
Speaker 1: need to maybe I need to kind of circle my

682
00:37:03,400 --> 00:37:07,839
Speaker 1: little my proverbial wagons here. So he decides that he's

683
00:37:07,840 --> 00:37:11,760
Speaker 1: going to protect the rights to royalties from his inventions. Uh,

684
00:37:11,800 --> 00:37:16,920
Speaker 1: and anything that could trace elements of the products being

685
00:37:16,920 --> 00:37:19,719
Speaker 1: sold back to one of his patents, right, Yeah, and

686
00:37:19,760 --> 00:37:22,759
Speaker 1: from the Branshaw model on. They really were working on

687
00:37:23,000 --> 00:37:27,719
Speaker 1: How's machine and kind of making twee tweaks to that. Uh.

688
00:37:27,719 --> 00:37:31,120
Speaker 1: And then he really got angry because he saw Isaac Singers,

689
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:35,960
Speaker 1: one of Isaac Singer's sons, demonstrating their sewing machine. Yeah,

690
00:37:36,040 --> 00:37:39,399
Speaker 1: and uh he said, huh, some of these elements look

691
00:37:39,440 --> 00:37:43,480
Speaker 1: awfully familiar. So of course he ends up doing the

692
00:37:43,520 --> 00:37:48,320
Speaker 1: responsible thing, you know. He contacts Singer and says, um, actually,

693
00:37:48,320 --> 00:37:51,520
Speaker 1: I own the patent for this, this machinery, this particular

694
00:37:51,719 --> 00:37:55,640
Speaker 1: piece that you're using, and uh so by law, um,

695
00:37:55,680 --> 00:37:58,839
Speaker 1: I should really receive a royalty payment because you're you're

696
00:37:58,960 --> 00:38:02,560
Speaker 1: using it in you or device and otherwise not not

697
00:38:03,239 --> 00:38:06,880
Speaker 1: compensating me for it, and so um, I'd really like

698
00:38:07,000 --> 00:38:09,839
Speaker 1: that two thousand dollars you owe me, and Singer, being

699
00:38:09,960 --> 00:38:16,400
Speaker 1: the very level headed professional businessman, uh, decided to um

700
00:38:16,400 --> 00:38:20,640
Speaker 1: physically threatened How. Yeah. He Singer was known for having

701
00:38:20,640 --> 00:38:23,480
Speaker 1: a really bad temper. He did some really seedy things

702
00:38:23,560 --> 00:38:26,520
Speaker 1: just in business outside of this, and when it came

703
00:38:26,560 --> 00:38:29,200
Speaker 1: to this, there was one incident where he allegedly threatened

704
00:38:29,239 --> 00:38:32,920
Speaker 1: and nearly threw how down the steps outside his office.

705
00:38:33,040 --> 00:38:36,640
Speaker 1: Like there were fisticuffs. It wasn't just yelling and through lawyers,

706
00:38:36,680 --> 00:38:40,239
Speaker 1: they were physically I get the feeling that Singer is

707
00:38:40,360 --> 00:38:44,759
Speaker 1: very much like the character from from Parts of the

708
00:38:44,760 --> 00:38:47,759
Speaker 1: Caribbean who just says, you know, they're more like guidelines.

709
00:38:49,719 --> 00:38:53,640
Speaker 1: It's he's he's not not really one to necessarily be

710
00:38:53,800 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 1: too concerned with the actual rules of law. You know,

711
00:38:57,200 --> 00:38:59,200
Speaker 1: that actor that plays Jackmi Gibb would make a great

712
00:38:59,239 --> 00:39:03,879
Speaker 1: Isaac Singer, he would, But How did a super smart thing.

713
00:39:03,960 --> 00:39:06,359
Speaker 1: This is where we really realized that this man was

714
00:39:06,560 --> 00:39:11,640
Speaker 1: just really smart and very widely so. He like some

715
00:39:11,719 --> 00:39:14,040
Speaker 1: of these previous sad stories. Really didn't have a lot

716
00:39:14,080 --> 00:39:17,200
Speaker 1: of money to get into a lot of legal battles,

717
00:39:17,239 --> 00:39:20,480
Speaker 1: but he figures out a way to finance some litigation.

718
00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:23,360
Speaker 1: He sells half of his interest in his patent to

719
00:39:23,520 --> 00:39:28,000
Speaker 1: a man named George Bliss, and Bliss manufactured machines. He

720
00:39:28,080 --> 00:39:30,560
Speaker 1: built them as being House patent, even though they were

721
00:39:31,080 --> 00:39:33,960
Speaker 1: pretty different from House initial design. But the money that

722
00:39:34,000 --> 00:39:36,960
Speaker 1: how made off of this partnership was basically put into

723
00:39:37,000 --> 00:39:39,959
Speaker 1: his litigation machine and he just started fighting people. Oh

724
00:39:40,200 --> 00:39:41,960
Speaker 1: got you. So, so what he was doing was he

725
00:39:41,960 --> 00:39:44,360
Speaker 1: had made this partnership. He was making money off the partnership.

726
00:39:44,400 --> 00:39:48,040
Speaker 1: Bliss is making money because of Howe's name. How is

727
00:39:48,080 --> 00:39:50,640
Speaker 1: making money because of the partnership with Bliss. He ends

728
00:39:50,719 --> 00:39:54,480
Speaker 1: up spending that money directly on lawyers to attack people

729
00:39:54,480 --> 00:39:58,200
Speaker 1: who are actually infringing upon his patents. Yeah, he went

730
00:39:58,239 --> 00:40:00,600
Speaker 1: after Singer with great vigor. But there we're a lot

731
00:40:00,640 --> 00:40:03,439
Speaker 1: of other people that were also in this mix. Uh,

732
00:40:03,640 --> 00:40:06,040
Speaker 1: two of them Laroux and Blodgett. That we're a pair,

733
00:40:06,080 --> 00:40:10,120
Speaker 1: that we're making a firm, that we're making machines that

734
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:13,520
Speaker 1: he thought infringed. There was actually a judgment in that

735
00:40:13,600 --> 00:40:15,640
Speaker 1: case in House favor that was the first one to

736
00:40:15,640 --> 00:40:18,359
Speaker 1: be settled, and once it it was like the first

737
00:40:18,440 --> 00:40:20,560
Speaker 1: of the dominoes, because then everybody else kind of panicked.

738
00:40:20,560 --> 00:40:22,200
Speaker 1: He went, oh, wow, he really has a case. Right.

739
00:40:22,200 --> 00:40:24,480
Speaker 1: When you've got a precedent set like that, then the

740
00:40:25,800 --> 00:40:28,040
Speaker 1: it becomes clear that's going to get harder and harder

741
00:40:28,040 --> 00:40:31,240
Speaker 1: to win a case. Uh. You know when a defense

742
00:40:31,280 --> 00:40:33,440
Speaker 1: against such a claim, If the claim has already been

743
00:40:33,440 --> 00:40:36,399
Speaker 1: held up in court in one instance, then the fear

744
00:40:36,480 --> 00:40:38,520
Speaker 1: is that it will be the same in future ones.

745
00:40:38,920 --> 00:40:42,560
Speaker 1: And it's cheaper to settle it is to go through

746
00:40:42,560 --> 00:40:46,080
Speaker 1: the process and then maybe have to be forced to

747
00:40:46,080 --> 00:40:49,720
Speaker 1: to hand over a larger reward in a court decision. Yeah,

748
00:40:49,760 --> 00:40:52,960
Speaker 1: and how was basically happy to any settlements, be like, okay,

749
00:40:53,040 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 1: let's set up a license. Like he was willing to

750
00:40:56,200 --> 00:40:58,319
Speaker 1: deal with them. It wasn't like he wanted to prevent

751
00:40:58,360 --> 00:41:01,280
Speaker 1: other people from making their machine. This is very different

752
00:41:01,320 --> 00:41:04,600
Speaker 1: from we see today when we were talking about similarities.

753
00:41:04,600 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 1: But today we got a lot of what we call

754
00:41:06,200 --> 00:41:09,120
Speaker 1: them patentrols. These are the folks who will get a

755
00:41:09,160 --> 00:41:12,480
Speaker 1: patent and then either they don't make anything on their own,

756
00:41:12,560 --> 00:41:15,200
Speaker 1: or they make something very very tiny, and then they

757
00:41:15,239 --> 00:41:16,920
Speaker 1: just kind of sit around and wait for folks to

758
00:41:16,920 --> 00:41:22,040
Speaker 1: infringe upon them. They threatened litigation in hopes of a settlement. Um.

759
00:41:22,080 --> 00:41:25,080
Speaker 1: But but what a lot of people have said about

760
00:41:25,120 --> 00:41:28,120
Speaker 1: the recent patent wars is that the patent system needs

761
00:41:28,160 --> 00:41:33,759
Speaker 1: to create an incentive for patent holders to license their

762
00:41:33,800 --> 00:41:36,680
Speaker 1: ideas for royalties, which is exactly what hal was doing

763
00:41:36,760 --> 00:41:39,080
Speaker 1: back in this day. Yeah. I mean he really saw

764
00:41:39,120 --> 00:41:40,919
Speaker 1: the benefit of like, hey, it would be a pain,

765
00:41:40,960 --> 00:41:42,360
Speaker 1: and that took us for me to set up my

766
00:41:42,360 --> 00:41:45,040
Speaker 1: own manufacturing plant and be churning these out. But all

767
00:41:45,040 --> 00:41:46,839
Speaker 1: these people are already set up. I can just cut

768
00:41:46,880 --> 00:41:51,640
Speaker 1: deals with them. Everybody wins. Yeah, except not so much. No, No,

769
00:41:51,760 --> 00:41:56,160
Speaker 1: I got I got ugly again. Apparently Singer was not done. Yeah,

770
00:41:56,239 --> 00:42:00,279
Speaker 1: he didn't settle, and so that case dragged on. Yeah,

771
00:42:00,280 --> 00:42:03,839
Speaker 1: and it got ugly in public. To write, you got

772
00:42:03,880 --> 00:42:08,200
Speaker 1: this great little story about to to advertisements that ran

773
00:42:08,280 --> 00:42:10,800
Speaker 1: on the same page of the New York Daily Tribune

774
00:42:11,040 --> 00:42:15,440
Speaker 1: that tell very different stories. Yeah, the first one reads

775
00:42:15,760 --> 00:42:18,680
Speaker 1: the sewing machine. It has been recently decided by the

776
00:42:18,760 --> 00:42:22,040
Speaker 1: United States Court that Elias how Jr. Of Number three

777
00:42:22,080 --> 00:42:25,240
Speaker 1: zero five Broadway was the originator of the sewing machine

778
00:42:25,280 --> 00:42:28,760
Speaker 1: now extensively used. Call at his office and see forty

779
00:42:28,800 --> 00:42:31,960
Speaker 1: of them in constant use upon cloth, leather, etcetera, and

780
00:42:32,040 --> 00:42:35,239
Speaker 1: judge for yourselves as to their practicality. Also see a

781
00:42:35,280 --> 00:42:38,040
Speaker 1: certified copy from the records of the United States Court

782
00:42:38,080 --> 00:42:42,960
Speaker 1: of the injunction against Singers machine so called, which is conclusive.

783
00:42:43,400 --> 00:42:46,080
Speaker 1: You that want sewing machines, be cautious how you purchased

784
00:42:46,120 --> 00:42:48,960
Speaker 1: them of others than him or those licensed under him.

785
00:42:49,280 --> 00:42:52,280
Speaker 1: Else the law will compel you to pay twice over. Meanwhile,

786
00:42:52,719 --> 00:42:58,160
Speaker 1: we have the other advertisement sewing machines. For the last

787
00:42:58,200 --> 00:43:02,239
Speaker 1: two years, Alias how Junior of Massachusetts, has been threatening

788
00:43:02,360 --> 00:43:05,799
Speaker 1: suits and injunctions against all the world who make, use

789
00:43:06,000 --> 00:43:09,759
Speaker 1: or sells sewing machines. We have sold many machines, are

790
00:43:09,920 --> 00:43:13,479
Speaker 1: selling them rapidly, and have good right to sell them.

791
00:43:13,680 --> 00:43:17,279
Speaker 1: The public do not acknowledge Mr Howe's pretensions, and for

792
00:43:17,320 --> 00:43:21,360
Speaker 1: the best reasons. One machines made according to House patent

793
00:43:21,560 --> 00:43:25,120
Speaker 1: are of no practical use. He tried several years without

794
00:43:25,160 --> 00:43:29,279
Speaker 1: being able to introduce one too. It is notorious, especially

795
00:43:29,320 --> 00:43:32,400
Speaker 1: in New York, that how was not the original inventor

796
00:43:32,640 --> 00:43:35,440
Speaker 1: of the machine combining the needle and shuttle and that

797
00:43:35,560 --> 00:43:40,000
Speaker 1: his claim to that is not valid. Finally, we make

798
00:43:40,080 --> 00:43:45,640
Speaker 1: and sell the best sewing machines. So yeah, there's um,

799
00:43:45,800 --> 00:43:49,600
Speaker 1: there's some vitriolic I love how It's it's like a

800
00:43:49,640 --> 00:43:53,839
Speaker 1: sewing machine telenovelo. There's a lot of soap opera going

801
00:43:53,920 --> 00:43:56,879
Speaker 1: on here. And to make it even more soap opera ish,

802
00:43:57,239 --> 00:44:00,520
Speaker 1: How went after Singer for libel. But he also went

803
00:44:00,560 --> 00:44:03,400
Speaker 1: after the New York Daily Tribune for printing his advertisement

804
00:44:03,400 --> 00:44:06,919
Speaker 1: in the first place. So we now have How going

805
00:44:07,040 --> 00:44:11,520
Speaker 1: after Singer both for patent infringement and reliabel. Yeah, fantastic,

806
00:44:11,560 --> 00:44:14,840
Speaker 1: just to make their relationship that much more delightful and huggy.

807
00:44:14,960 --> 00:44:19,240
Speaker 1: So at this point Singer, Singer wakes up and just says,

808
00:44:19,320 --> 00:44:21,719
Speaker 1: you know, you know you were right. I was wrong.

809
00:44:21,800 --> 00:44:23,879
Speaker 1: I'm I'm gonna be the bigger man walk away right,

810
00:44:23,960 --> 00:44:27,279
Speaker 1: not even a little. He instead just kind of goes

811
00:44:27,320 --> 00:44:29,880
Speaker 1: into a rage suitable to be played only by Daniel

812
00:44:29,920 --> 00:44:33,080
Speaker 1: day Lewis. Decides he's going to destroy How so this

813
00:44:33,200 --> 00:44:37,960
Speaker 1: is butcher Bill totally totally. He decides he is going

814
00:44:38,000 --> 00:44:41,719
Speaker 1: to seek out every scrap of evidence on earth. He

815
00:44:41,840 --> 00:44:46,040
Speaker 1: even sought out sources in Europe and China, to prove

816
00:44:46,760 --> 00:44:51,240
Speaker 1: that house design was not original. Uh. And the key

817
00:44:51,560 --> 00:44:54,880
Speaker 1: here is that the wording in house patent was really

818
00:44:54,920 --> 00:44:58,880
Speaker 1: his protection because he had patented the combination of the

819
00:44:58,880 --> 00:45:01,280
Speaker 1: shuttle and the one I and the I pointed needle

820
00:45:02,040 --> 00:45:04,440
Speaker 1: and how they would work together. But he never claimed

821
00:45:04,480 --> 00:45:07,600
Speaker 1: to have invented either of those elements, and so his

822
00:45:07,680 --> 00:45:11,000
Speaker 1: patent remained accurate and correct and not infringing on anyone

823
00:45:11,000 --> 00:45:13,759
Speaker 1: else because he didn't say I invented the needle invent

824
00:45:13,800 --> 00:45:16,120
Speaker 1: at the shuttle. He said I invented this combination of

825
00:45:16,160 --> 00:45:19,080
Speaker 1: these two elements that work in this particular way. Correct,

826
00:45:19,160 --> 00:45:23,839
Speaker 1: and that is completely valid patent law. So again, if

827
00:45:23,840 --> 00:45:26,480
Speaker 1: you come up with a new way to use existing

828
00:45:26,520 --> 00:45:30,600
Speaker 1: technology that you you can claim as an improvement over others,

829
00:45:30,840 --> 00:45:33,640
Speaker 1: there's nothing stopping you from getting a patent on that. Yeah,

830
00:45:33,719 --> 00:45:36,160
Speaker 1: you can patent an interaction of things. They don't have

831
00:45:36,239 --> 00:45:40,760
Speaker 1: to be physical things necessarily. Uh. However, if you remember

832
00:45:40,760 --> 00:45:42,759
Speaker 1: back when we talked about Walter Hunt, who was the

833
00:45:43,200 --> 00:45:45,920
Speaker 1: guy who invented a pretty workable sewing machine but then

834
00:45:46,000 --> 00:45:48,760
Speaker 1: kind of sold it off and abandoned it, he never

835
00:45:48,800 --> 00:45:53,120
Speaker 1: he never patented his particular idea. Singer found him of course,

836
00:45:53,239 --> 00:45:55,360
Speaker 1: because he thought that was his best shot at bringing

837
00:45:55,360 --> 00:45:57,359
Speaker 1: How down and showing that How is not, in fact

838
00:45:57,440 --> 00:46:00,960
Speaker 1: the first person to invent a working so machine. So

839
00:46:01,920 --> 00:46:06,879
Speaker 1: he I guess he just wanted to retroactively magically get

840
00:46:06,520 --> 00:46:10,919
Speaker 1: a precursor patent that couldn't have existed because William Hunt

841
00:46:10,920 --> 00:46:13,959
Speaker 1: never patented his detention. That is exactly what he tried

842
00:46:13,960 --> 00:46:18,400
Speaker 1: to do. So this this reminds me. I mean, there

843
00:46:18,400 --> 00:46:21,120
Speaker 1: there are entire books written about some of the more

844
00:46:21,239 --> 00:46:24,320
Speaker 1: ridiculous things that have happened in patent law around the world,

845
00:46:24,400 --> 00:46:27,560
Speaker 1: but particularly in the United States. So another good example

846
00:46:27,760 --> 00:46:32,319
Speaker 1: of some shenanigans that went on with patents involves Tesla

847
00:46:32,360 --> 00:46:36,520
Speaker 1: and Radio because Tesla was awarded the patent the United

848
00:46:36,520 --> 00:46:41,000
Speaker 1: States UH the same year that Marconi actually filed for

849
00:46:41,040 --> 00:46:43,480
Speaker 1: a patent. In fact, he received the patent a month

850
00:46:43,560 --> 00:46:46,239
Speaker 1: before or two months before Marconi had filed for a

851
00:46:46,239 --> 00:46:49,919
Speaker 1: patent in the US, and then famously, several years later

852
00:46:50,160 --> 00:46:54,400
Speaker 1: the Patent office awarded they went back on their decision,

853
00:46:54,560 --> 00:46:58,120
Speaker 1: took the patent away from Tesla and awarded it to Marconi.

854
00:46:58,640 --> 00:47:03,080
Speaker 1: So even though that happens later, you know this this

855
00:47:03,400 --> 00:47:06,680
Speaker 1: the events we're talking about here are earlier in the timeline.

856
00:47:07,640 --> 00:47:10,000
Speaker 1: It's not unusual for us to see these kind of

857
00:47:10,040 --> 00:47:14,680
Speaker 1: crazy political dealings. Yeah, and again remember, uh, you know,

858
00:47:15,040 --> 00:47:17,480
Speaker 1: this wasn't a time when everything was duplicated and there

859
00:47:17,520 --> 00:47:20,359
Speaker 1: was a trail of what had happened, when it would

860
00:47:20,360 --> 00:47:23,040
Speaker 1: be easy to fudge things. So it's it's reasonable that

861
00:47:23,120 --> 00:47:25,239
Speaker 1: Singer could think that he was going to finagle something

862
00:47:25,239 --> 00:47:28,240
Speaker 1: out of this. So what what happens due to this

863
00:47:28,239 --> 00:47:33,280
Speaker 1: this claim? Well, first Singer hires an engineer, William Whiting, uh,

864
00:47:33,520 --> 00:47:37,160
Speaker 1: to basically help resurrect Hunt's designs. He's gonna go back

865
00:47:37,200 --> 00:47:40,000
Speaker 1: to those original blueprints and schematics and he's going to

866
00:47:40,080 --> 00:47:42,279
Speaker 1: build it to prove that this one works and it's

867
00:47:42,320 --> 00:47:49,920
Speaker 1: great and how you got nothing? Uh? And uh, this

868
00:47:50,239 --> 00:47:53,880
Speaker 1: Scientific American at the time, as this was all bubbling up,

869
00:47:53,920 --> 00:47:59,719
Speaker 1: actually published a pretty uh scathing article about Hunt, a

870
00:47:59,760 --> 00:48:02,040
Speaker 1: sting because he was like, oh, yeah, I did invent

871
00:48:02,080 --> 00:48:03,919
Speaker 1: the sewing machine. Now that he sees that there's money

872
00:48:03,920 --> 00:48:06,400
Speaker 1: in it, and this is a litigious thing. They basically

873
00:48:06,440 --> 00:48:09,200
Speaker 1: said that his claims were rusty, he didn't he had

874
00:48:09,239 --> 00:48:11,439
Speaker 1: no hat in this game, Like what was he trying

875
00:48:11,480 --> 00:48:14,600
Speaker 1: to do? And no legal basis really, but there was

876
00:48:14,640 --> 00:48:18,040
Speaker 1: a trial with the Patent Office. There were hundreds of

877
00:48:18,040 --> 00:48:20,680
Speaker 1: pages of testimony. I mean it went on forever. Singer

878
00:48:20,760 --> 00:48:23,520
Speaker 1: dragged everybody in that he could think of that had

879
00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:27,360
Speaker 1: ever touched anything that vaguely resembled a sewing machine. UM

880
00:48:27,560 --> 00:48:31,280
Speaker 1: Patent Commissioner Charles Mason, though, ruled in favor of Elias

881
00:48:31,320 --> 00:48:35,000
Speaker 1: Howe on eighteen fifty four. And the big part of

882
00:48:35,080 --> 00:48:37,480
Speaker 1: Hunt's loss, even though he really did have a pretty

883
00:48:37,480 --> 00:48:40,000
Speaker 1: good working machine, was that he didn't do anything to

884
00:48:40,080 --> 00:48:44,360
Speaker 1: patent it or protected eighteen years prior. So, uh, the

885
00:48:44,360 --> 00:48:47,200
Speaker 1: Patent Office can't can't rule in favor of someone who

886
00:48:47,239 --> 00:48:50,920
Speaker 1: hasn't actually gone through the process. Yeah. Yeah, The commissioners like,

887
00:48:51,000 --> 00:48:52,719
Speaker 1: what are you trying to do? You didn't you don't

888
00:48:52,719 --> 00:48:55,600
Speaker 1: have these rights. Hunt did try to appeal to the

889
00:48:55,640 --> 00:48:58,560
Speaker 1: Circuit Court of the District of Columbia, but that did

890
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:02,759
Speaker 1: not go so well either. Mason's ruling was upheld. So

891
00:49:02,800 --> 00:49:10,040
Speaker 1: then how emboldened by this victory, decides to start going

892
00:49:10,080 --> 00:49:13,760
Speaker 1: after other people that he has has perceived as infringing

893
00:49:13,760 --> 00:49:16,720
Speaker 1: against his patents. Yep, everybody that was selling a Singer

894
00:49:16,760 --> 00:49:20,600
Speaker 1: machine he went after. Wow, that was a lot of people. Yeah,

895
00:49:20,680 --> 00:49:24,160
Speaker 1: and he asked for preliminary injunctions against all of them

896
00:49:24,160 --> 00:49:26,520
Speaker 1: to shut down sales while they went through their court cases.

897
00:49:27,000 --> 00:49:31,279
Speaker 1: So he goes through this process, bringing it all the

898
00:49:31,280 --> 00:49:38,200
Speaker 1: way to courts when necessary. Um, and the they what

899
00:49:38,400 --> 00:49:40,919
Speaker 1: happened the poor singer at this point, not not really

900
00:49:40,920 --> 00:49:43,480
Speaker 1: poor singer because he's kind of a jerk. But but

901
00:49:43,600 --> 00:49:45,759
Speaker 1: you've got you've got how going after the people who

902
00:49:45,760 --> 00:49:49,239
Speaker 1: are selling singer sewing machines or incorporating them. Then what

903
00:49:49,360 --> 00:49:51,600
Speaker 1: they're doing instead, you know, they get attacked by how

904
00:49:51,719 --> 00:49:54,759
Speaker 1: they turned around. They attack singers saying, you got us

905
00:49:54,800 --> 00:49:57,040
Speaker 1: into this. Yeah, you had no right to sell us

906
00:49:57,080 --> 00:49:59,040
Speaker 1: the licenses that you sold us because you didn't have

907
00:49:59,080 --> 00:50:02,200
Speaker 1: a right to it. Didn't own the technology that you

908
00:50:02,239 --> 00:50:05,520
Speaker 1: were licensing to us. And and that's why we're in trouble. Yea.

909
00:50:05,800 --> 00:50:10,600
Speaker 1: So it's so litigious. By eighteen fifty four, keep in

910
00:50:10,640 --> 00:50:14,600
Speaker 1: mind this started in the eighteen fifty By eighteen fifty four,

911
00:50:14,680 --> 00:50:18,719
Speaker 1: Singer and how settle their lawsuit and it's announced in

912
00:50:18,800 --> 00:50:22,200
Speaker 1: Scientific American. This is a big deal. This is not

913
00:50:22,560 --> 00:50:25,640
Speaker 1: tiny news. This is like this is just like when

914
00:50:25,640 --> 00:50:28,040
Speaker 1: you go on to Google news and you see like

915
00:50:28,080 --> 00:50:31,640
Speaker 1: Samsung and Apple settle lawsuit. That's that's equivalent. Yeah, it's

916
00:50:31,680 --> 00:50:34,080
Speaker 1: kind of like it reminds me of when those first

917
00:50:34,160 --> 00:50:38,120
Speaker 1: like headlines were happening about no Steve Jobs and Bill

918
00:50:38,120 --> 00:50:40,799
Speaker 1: Gates actually like each other. It's fine, and it's like

919
00:50:40,840 --> 00:50:42,839
Speaker 1: that level of wait, what we didn't think that's how

920
00:50:42,880 --> 00:50:46,719
Speaker 1: this worked, except there was very little pushing down of

921
00:50:46,800 --> 00:50:50,919
Speaker 1: stairs in any of them. Right, well, what what's really

922
00:50:50,920 --> 00:50:54,000
Speaker 1: cool about this? Okay, so this didn't end all litigation.

923
00:50:54,080 --> 00:50:58,239
Speaker 1: There was still some continuing. But by eighteen fifty six

924
00:50:58,320 --> 00:51:00,840
Speaker 1: we get the president of Grover and Baker, which was

925
00:51:00,960 --> 00:51:04,120
Speaker 1: one of the companies involved in the suits, that were, uh,

926
00:51:04,440 --> 00:51:07,200
Speaker 1: that we're involving Elias How, I feel like we should

927
00:51:07,200 --> 00:51:09,000
Speaker 1: back up because we skipped that. People tried to then

928
00:51:09,040 --> 00:51:13,600
Speaker 1: sue how for improving Uh yeah, so How Basically at

929
00:51:13,600 --> 00:51:17,320
Speaker 1: this point was the you know, the czar of the

930
00:51:17,320 --> 00:51:20,640
Speaker 1: sewing machine in industry. He owned the patent to the

931
00:51:20,680 --> 00:51:23,799
Speaker 1: biggest chunk of it and was licensing those out, and

932
00:51:23,840 --> 00:51:25,640
Speaker 1: he thought, well, you know, I could really tweak that

933
00:51:25,719 --> 00:51:28,759
Speaker 1: original design as well. But every tweak he made other

934
00:51:28,760 --> 00:51:30,759
Speaker 1: people claim they had already made. So then he was

935
00:51:30,800 --> 00:51:34,799
Speaker 1: getting sued by people for patent infringement for improving on

936
00:51:34,880 --> 00:51:38,880
Speaker 1: his original design. Okay, so that's a litigation festival. Basically.

937
00:51:39,440 --> 00:51:42,440
Speaker 1: Now you've got people saying, all right, well, these improvements

938
00:51:42,480 --> 00:51:46,239
Speaker 1: you're making, we've already made and we've already patented. So

939
00:51:46,800 --> 00:51:49,319
Speaker 1: it's become a huge mess. By eighteen fifty six, you

940
00:51:49,320 --> 00:51:51,160
Speaker 1: get the president of Grover and Baker, which was one

941
00:51:51,200 --> 00:51:54,280
Speaker 1: of the companies that was involved in these cases against

942
00:51:54,320 --> 00:51:59,000
Speaker 1: how about these improvements to the original designs and comes

943
00:51:59,080 --> 00:52:03,839
Speaker 1: up with a concept up called the combination, which, by

944
00:52:03,840 --> 00:52:06,920
Speaker 1: the way, these days we would call this a patent pool. Yeah,

945
00:52:07,239 --> 00:52:09,000
Speaker 1: and a patent pool is essentially when you get a

946
00:52:09,040 --> 00:52:12,400
Speaker 1: whole bunch of different stakeholders who all own different patents

947
00:52:12,480 --> 00:52:16,360
Speaker 1: that are involved in the same general technology to essentially

948
00:52:16,360 --> 00:52:19,359
Speaker 1: come to an agreement saying, all right, we're gonna pull

949
00:52:19,400 --> 00:52:21,719
Speaker 1: all these patents together, and as long as we are

950
00:52:21,760 --> 00:52:24,240
Speaker 1: all officially part of this group and we all agree

951
00:52:24,320 --> 00:52:27,040
Speaker 1: to operate by these rules, we're not going to sue

952
00:52:27,040 --> 00:52:30,360
Speaker 1: the pants off each other. Whenever we make an improvement

953
00:52:30,360 --> 00:52:33,680
Speaker 1: to that technology or incorporate that technology into our products.

954
00:52:34,560 --> 00:52:38,000
Speaker 1: Make suring that everyone's getting the royalties that they deserve exactly.

955
00:52:38,200 --> 00:52:41,800
Speaker 1: So the president of Grover and Baker was Orlando B. Potter,

956
00:52:41,960 --> 00:52:44,360
Speaker 1: and he, you know, I feel like he's a person

957
00:52:44,400 --> 00:52:47,680
Speaker 1: that's not very well known historically, but he really deserves

958
00:52:47,680 --> 00:52:49,760
Speaker 1: a lot of kudos because he was really the first

959
00:52:49,760 --> 00:52:53,600
Speaker 1: person to go, hey, you guys, we're only hurting ourselves.

960
00:52:53,600 --> 00:52:57,120
Speaker 1: We're kind of being idiots. And he really established this

961
00:52:57,200 --> 00:53:00,680
Speaker 1: concept of what is now a patent pool. Uh. He

962
00:53:00,800 --> 00:53:03,480
Speaker 1: was like, let's stop, you know, holding up everybody's production.

963
00:53:03,600 --> 00:53:06,520
Speaker 1: Let's stop throwing our money at lawyers. We don't need that.

964
00:53:06,600 --> 00:53:10,640
Speaker 1: We can work this out. Uh. And so he got

965
00:53:10,719 --> 00:53:13,040
Speaker 1: them all to join their forces. They pulled their patents.

966
00:53:13,080 --> 00:53:17,040
Speaker 1: They made one unified combination patent for sewing machines. How

967
00:53:17,120 --> 00:53:19,960
Speaker 1: initially was not on board with this. Well, now, when

968
00:53:19,960 --> 00:53:22,879
Speaker 1: you own a huge chunk of the landscape, then you

969
00:53:22,920 --> 00:53:25,000
Speaker 1: feel like you have the most to lose that kind

970
00:53:25,000 --> 00:53:28,680
Speaker 1: of agreement. He definitely felt that way, but eventually he

971
00:53:28,760 --> 00:53:32,400
Speaker 1: did agree to it. He had made some pretty heavy

972
00:53:32,440 --> 00:53:36,160
Speaker 1: stipulations and the other parties agreed. Basically, he was going

973
00:53:36,200 --> 00:53:38,840
Speaker 1: to get a five dollar royalty on every sewing machine

974
00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:41,520
Speaker 1: that was sold in the US, and for every sewing

975
00:53:41,560 --> 00:53:43,680
Speaker 1: machine that was exported, he would get a dollar. Now,

976
00:53:43,719 --> 00:53:45,879
Speaker 1: I remember this is in eighteen fifty six, so these

977
00:53:45,880 --> 00:53:49,080
Speaker 1: are not paltry sums. No, this is this is significant money.

978
00:53:49,320 --> 00:53:52,719
Speaker 1: So in the next eleven years between eighteen fifty six,

979
00:53:53,080 --> 00:53:56,120
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty seven, when How's Patton expired, he made

980
00:53:56,120 --> 00:53:58,560
Speaker 1: more than two million dollars. And that's two million dollars

981
00:53:58,640 --> 00:54:02,880
Speaker 1: in eight hundreds of money. Yeah, that's way more. But

982
00:54:03,080 --> 00:54:07,799
Speaker 1: he would be a kajillionaire. Crazy crazy, I think that

983
00:54:07,840 --> 00:54:13,840
Speaker 1: was accurate estimation there um. And he requested a an

984
00:54:13,880 --> 00:54:17,920
Speaker 1: extension to that patent, but was denied. Patents do, like

985
00:54:17,960 --> 00:54:21,400
Speaker 1: I said earlier, expire, and when they expire, you lose

986
00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:25,520
Speaker 1: that exclusivity. You cannot demand licenses for it. That technology,

987
00:54:25,640 --> 00:54:29,360
Speaker 1: that implementation of that technology then belongs to the public,

988
00:54:29,680 --> 00:54:32,600
Speaker 1: so anyone can create any kind of device using that

989
00:54:32,640 --> 00:54:36,160
Speaker 1: sort of approach um that was originally covered by that

990
00:54:36,160 --> 00:54:39,360
Speaker 1: patent that's now expired. So he doesn't get the extension

991
00:54:39,440 --> 00:54:41,920
Speaker 1: he wanted, and he dies of a broken heart. He

992
00:54:41,960 --> 00:54:43,759
Speaker 1: doesn't really die of a broken heart. His heart was

993
00:54:43,800 --> 00:54:45,799
Speaker 1: broken earlier in his life when his wife died, but

994
00:54:46,080 --> 00:54:48,640
Speaker 1: it did not kill him. To the best of our knowledge, However,

995
00:54:50,040 --> 00:54:53,640
Speaker 1: some say that it did kind of spur his ft

996
00:54:53,840 --> 00:54:57,520
Speaker 1: because he just needed to focus on something else. Um.

997
00:54:57,640 --> 00:55:02,759
Speaker 1: But Singer of course continue to work his magic in

998
00:55:02,800 --> 00:55:06,160
Speaker 1: the sewing machine industry. And now as a consequence, you know,

999
00:55:07,120 --> 00:55:10,200
Speaker 1: he's really the name we remember more than Alliance. How yeah, yeah,

1000
00:55:10,239 --> 00:55:13,320
Speaker 1: you see that name all over. The was exceptional at marketing,

1001
00:55:14,080 --> 00:55:18,720
Speaker 1: very much again, kind of like Edison, who was brilliant

1002
00:55:18,760 --> 00:55:20,920
Speaker 1: in many ways, and one of the big ones was

1003
00:55:20,960 --> 00:55:25,160
Speaker 1: that he was a very smart businessman and marketer. So yeah,

1004
00:55:25,239 --> 00:55:28,480
Speaker 1: this is again you can see the parallels with modern

1005
00:55:28,520 --> 00:55:32,400
Speaker 1: patent wars. Everything from the cooperation of various companies to

1006
00:55:32,480 --> 00:55:36,720
Speaker 1: make sure that business can continue, the arguments that patent

1007
00:55:36,800 --> 00:55:41,040
Speaker 1: litigation harms innovation, that that pat that's sitting on patents

1008
00:55:41,080 --> 00:55:45,200
Speaker 1: harms innovation. These are not new ideas. No, you gotta

1009
00:55:45,239 --> 00:55:48,759
Speaker 1: look at you know, early to mid nineteenth century and

1010
00:55:48,800 --> 00:55:52,000
Speaker 1: you can see it all there as well. So very

1011
00:55:52,040 --> 00:55:54,759
Speaker 1: interesting that there's so much in common with what we

1012
00:55:54,840 --> 00:55:58,840
Speaker 1: see today. That wraps up this classic episode about the

1013
00:55:58,840 --> 00:56:00,880
Speaker 1: sewing machine. I hope you and joined it. If you

1014
00:56:00,920 --> 00:56:03,640
Speaker 1: have suggestions for topics I should cover in future episodes

1015
00:56:03,680 --> 00:56:06,319
Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, reach out to me. On Twitter, the

1016
00:56:06,360 --> 00:56:08,800
Speaker 1: handle for the show is tech Stuff h s W

1017
00:56:09,440 --> 00:56:17,239
Speaker 1: and I'll talk to you again really soon. Y. Tech

1018
00:56:17,320 --> 00:56:20,759
Speaker 1: Stuff is an I Heart Radio production. For more podcasts

1019
00:56:20,800 --> 00:56:23,560
Speaker 1: from my Heart Radio, visit the i heart Radio app,

1020
00:56:23,680 --> 00:56:26,840
Speaker 1: Apple Podcasts, or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.