Speaker 1: Welcome to tech Stuff, a production from iHeartRadio. Okay, hey there,
Speaker 1: and welcome to tech Stuff. I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland.
Speaker 1: I'm an executive producer with iHeartRadio and how the tech
Speaker 1: are you now? Before I get started on today's episode,
Speaker 1: which is a part one of a two parter, I
Speaker 1: wanted to let y'all know that I'm going to be
Speaker 1: at this year's iHeartRadio Music Festival House of Music. I'll
Speaker 1: be recording live in the iHeart Podcasts studio that's powered
Speaker 1: by Bose. So come by on Friday this Friday at
Speaker 1: six pm to the free House of Music outside T
Speaker 1: Mobile Arena. I'll see you there and you'll be able
Speaker 1: to hear the episode I record at the House of
Speaker 1: Music at the iHeart podcast Studio powered by Bose on Monday.
Speaker 1: That episode should come out Monday and will be about
Speaker 1: something really pertinent. Anyway. The House of Music, in case
Speaker 1: you're curious, it's this big interactive exhibit where you can
Speaker 1: experience immersive mixed reality. These experiences linked to the various
Speaker 1: artists who are performing at this year's festival, and there's
Speaker 1: a let me tell you, a wide spectrum of experiences
Speaker 1: like something for everybody. There's a room that's dedicated to
Speaker 1: Public Enemy, There's another one dedicated to Fallout Boy, There's
Speaker 1: one dedicated to Kelly Clarkson. Like I said, it's a
Speaker 1: pretty wide range of experiences, and they're more. Besides that,
Speaker 1: those are just three of the ones that will be
Speaker 1: part of this House of Music experience. Now, as part
Speaker 1: of that, we have, like I said, this Bose powered
Speaker 1: podcast studio. And I know what you're thinking, Yes, this
Speaker 1: whole thing is way cooler than I am, but they
Speaker 1: still asked me to come, so I'm gonna go there.
Speaker 1: I hope to see some of y'all there. All right,
Speaker 1: now let's get to the episodes. So, since I am
Speaker 1: going to be traveling out to Las Vegas this week
Speaker 1: and it's going to really disrupt my normal recording schedule,
Speaker 1: I decided to get a jump on things and I
Speaker 1: wrote out a two part episode for y'all. So Part
Speaker 1: one is today, Part two will be tomorrow. Then on Friday,
Speaker 1: I'll be recording live in Vegas, and then next week
Speaker 1: should be I guess, kind of normal. I'm actually still
Speaker 1: going to be in Vegas for a separate thing with
Speaker 1: Mobile World Congress, but we'll see how normal I can
Speaker 1: make it. I'm bringing my recording equipment with me. I'll
Speaker 1: just be recording, probably in my hotel room, but someplace
Speaker 1: that's relatively quiet, is my hope. Okay, now, I have
Speaker 1: done a few episodes about patents on this show. Today,
Speaker 1: I thought I would talk about the history of the
Speaker 1: patent office here in the United States and also talk
Speaker 1: about how one massive fire prompted changes that meant a second,
Speaker 1: technically more costly fire was ultimately far less destructive. But
Speaker 1: that's definitely getting ahead of myself, because I won't even
Speaker 1: be touching the fires at all, because fire is hot,
Speaker 1: but I won't be talking about them until tomorrow. However, first,
Speaker 1: before we get into any history stuff, let's go over
Speaker 1: why patents exist in the first place. So the purpose
Speaker 1: of a patent is to grant limited but exclusive rights
Speaker 1: to an inventor of their invention. And when I say inventor,
Speaker 1: I don't always mean inventor, I mean patent holder, because
Speaker 1: the entity that holds a patent might not have been
Speaker 1: actually responsible for the invention, but through whatever arrangement between
Speaker 1: inventor and entity there is, it means that the entity
Speaker 1: holds that patent and they have this limited but exclusive
Speaker 1: set of rights. So the concept here is that the
Speaker 1: inventor comes up with either a significant improvement over an
Speaker 1: existing thing, or they come up with something that is
Speaker 1: totally new altogether. The inventor then details what this invention
Speaker 1: does and how it works in a document in a
Speaker 1: set of specifications, ideally so that a person who was
Speaker 1: reading it would have a reasonable idea of how it
Speaker 1: functions and potentially could even follow steps to create a
Speaker 1: version of their own in the future. So the patent
Speaker 1: means that the patent holder can choose what to do
Speaker 1: with that invention, and no one else has that right,
Speaker 1: at least for as long as the patent is valid.
Speaker 1: Patents do eventually expire, so that's why I say there's
Speaker 1: a limited exclusive rights granted to the patent holder, because
Speaker 1: eventually they do expire. The patent holder can choose to
Speaker 1: make their own invention themselves, so they could start reducing
Speaker 1: whatever it was they invented, and they could also pursue
Speaker 1: legal action against anyone who copies them. They could argue
Speaker 1: for patent infringement. So if someone were to try and
Speaker 1: make their own version and it appeared to be based
Speaker 1: off the same functions and operations that were covered by
Speaker 1: the patent. The patent holder could say, I hold the
Speaker 1: exclusive patent for this. I didn't give you permission to
Speaker 1: use this invention. You owe me money. And assuming that
Speaker 1: the argument is a sound one, and the court finds
Speaker 1: that yes, the copy or whatever was in fact based
Speaker 1: upon the exact same principles as the patented invention, then
Speaker 1: the court is more likely to side with the plaintiff
Speaker 1: in that case. So the inventor or patent holder could
Speaker 1: also license their invention to other entities, like a manufacturing company.
Speaker 1: So in this case, the company or whatever pays a
Speaker 1: license fee to the patent holder, and then that company
Speaker 1: starts to make the thing and sells it themselves, and
Speaker 1: the patent holder just sits back and collects licensing fees
Speaker 1: and doesn't have to actually pour the capital into making
Speaker 1: the thing themselves. If the patent holder is a real jerk,
Speaker 1: they can get a patent on something and then just
Speaker 1: sit on it and just wait to see. If anyone
Speaker 1: ever makes anything that could be said to infringe upon
Speaker 1: their patents, then the patent holder could sue or threaten
Speaker 1: to sue that other person or entity and look for
Speaker 1: like a really big settlement or court decision. This kind
Speaker 1: of patent holder is what we call a patent troll.
Speaker 1: Patent trolls don't make anything. They typically don't license their
Speaker 1: patents either, so they just sit on them. They patent
Speaker 1: something and they wait and then they pounce if they
Speaker 1: see anyone that makes something that they could argue was
Speaker 1: predicated upon their patents. It's pretty awful, and obviously it's
Speaker 1: a way of behaving that's antithetical to the purpose of
Speaker 1: a patent. Patents weren't made so that you could set
Speaker 1: a trap and wait and then pounce on someone when
Speaker 1: they appear to trip the trap. They were made to
Speaker 1: encourage innovation and invention. Now, because patents are available for
Speaker 1: public review, you can go and look at all these
Speaker 1: patents that are filed to this day. You can search
Speaker 1: various databases for all the patents that have been filed
Speaker 1: that still exist. We'll talk more about that in tomorrow's episode.
Speaker 1: But this also means that the inventor or patent holder
Speaker 1: can't keep their invention to themselves forever. Ideally, someone with
Speaker 1: the materials and skill would be able to take those
Speaker 1: specifications that were laid out in a patent along with
Speaker 1: whatever sketches might be included and build their own version
Speaker 1: of that invention. They can't do that without the inventor's
Speaker 1: permission until the patent expires, but at that point it
Speaker 1: enters public domain and it's fair gain. So the thinking
Speaker 1: behind this is that really useful inventions shouldn't be locked
Speaker 1: away from the public in perpetuity. They should be available
Speaker 1: for people to make use of beyond a certain span
Speaker 1: of years. So a patent is meant to grant a
Speaker 1: reasonable amount of time to the patent holder in order
Speaker 1: for them to make money off of their invention. Chances are,
Speaker 1: by the time the patent expires, advancements will mean that
Speaker 1: the original invention isn't necessarily relevant anymore anyway. But with
Speaker 1: the patent going into the public domain, people are free
Speaker 1: to build upon that design and to improve upon it
Speaker 1: and to evolve it. So a patent is a balance
Speaker 1: between providing for the benefit of the inventor or patent
Speaker 1: holder and ensuring the public good in the long term. Now,
Speaker 1: there are criteria that an invention has to meet in
Speaker 1: order to be patentable. For one thing, it needs to
Speaker 1: have a useful purpose, so that could be a fairly
Speaker 1: subjective criterion. It needs to be new. If there are
Speaker 1: already versions of this invention out there in the world,
Speaker 1: well then it's not eligible for a patent. We've seen
Speaker 1: this recently with lots of things where where people have argued, hey,
Speaker 1: there were already versions of that technology that existed prior
Speaker 1: to your patent application, so you shouldn't be able to
Speaker 1: receive a patent for that because it's not new. Something
Speaker 1: else already exists that does the thing you're doing. It's
Speaker 1: also supposed to be non obvious, so that means it
Speaker 1: needs to be inventive. It needs to be something that
Speaker 1: not just anybody would say, oh this is bad design.
Speaker 1: Let's just change this one thing and now it works better.
Speaker 1: So it can't be an obvious improvement. It has to
Speaker 1: be something that was special. If the average person could
Speaker 1: have invented it, then it doesn't qualify for a patent.
Speaker 1: It also has to cover patentable subject matter, and this
Speaker 1: gets a little more complicated. So, for example, you couldn't
Speaker 1: patent something that occurs in nature like a flower, assuming
Speaker 1: of course that the flower already exists in nature, and
Speaker 1: that makes sense. Now the flower is not of human design.
Speaker 1: It's not a flower that's of human origin. But if
Speaker 1: you were able to create, say a new kind of flower,
Speaker 1: and it reproduces asexually and it's not found in nature,
Speaker 1: that is something that is patentable. You can also patent
Speaker 1: a process. In fact, you can patent really kind of
Speaker 1: abstract processes if they have like a concrete outcome. So
Speaker 1: if you came up with a new way to conduct business,
Speaker 1: you could conceivably file and receive a patent for that.
Speaker 1: And you can patent formula for stuff like drugs or
Speaker 1: other chemicals. Those kind of things can be patented, but
Speaker 1: mathematical formula cannot be patented. Neither can scientific principles. Those
Speaker 1: cannot be patented. That mathematics bit ended up being a
Speaker 1: real hang up when people started writing software because they
Speaker 1: wanted to patent their software. But there were a lot
Speaker 1: of debates over whether a program would be patentable because
Speaker 1: when you really get down to brass tacks, programs are
Speaker 1: just a set of mathematical operations, and mathematical operations and
Speaker 1: formulas are not patentable. Back in the nineteen sixties and
Speaker 1: nineteen seventies, the Patent and Trademark Office was reluctant to
Speaker 1: issue a patent for any invention that included calculations made
Speaker 1: by a computer. The Supreme Court in the United States
Speaker 1: backed up the Patent Office in a couple of major
Speaker 1: decisions during those decades. Things started to change a little bit.
Speaker 1: In the nineteen eighties, however, the Supreme Court ruled that
Speaker 1: one process that did include software was in fact patentable.
Speaker 1: But this was a process that had a lot of
Speaker 1: different elements in it. If you're curious, it was really
Speaker 1: about heating rubber to the proper temperature in order to
Speaker 1: cure the rubber, and software was one part of it,
Speaker 1: but not the only part. So this wasn't exactly a
Speaker 1: clear cut case saying yes, software is patentable. It was
Speaker 1: more like the software was part of a larger process
Speaker 1: and the overall process was patentable. Today, obtaining a patent
Speaker 1: on software is still a little dodgy, and it can
Speaker 1: really gum up the court systems in the US. But
Speaker 1: that's a matter for another episode. So let's talk about
Speaker 1: some other stuff that you cannot patent. You can't patent
Speaker 1: surgical procedures. You can't patent a dance or an exercise,
Speaker 1: though you could patent exercise equipment or dance equipment. You
Speaker 1: can't patent an invention that violates the laws of physics,
Speaker 1: so that means stuff like perpetual motion machines are not
Speaker 1: eligible for patents, even though that hasn't always stopped inventors
Speaker 1: from trying to patent it, and it hasn't always stopped
Speaker 1: the Patent Office from making a whoopsie, at least in
Speaker 1: the short term. Well, we're going to talk more about
Speaker 1: the actual history of patents in just a moment, but
Speaker 1: first let's take a quick break to thank our sponsors. Okay,
Speaker 1: we're back. So the history of patents in the United
Speaker 1: States involves one of the founding fathers of the country,
Speaker 1: one of our early presidents, in fact, Thomas Jefferson, so
Speaker 1: old Tommy Boy, spent a great deal of time in
Speaker 1: Europe securing support as the colonies that would become the
Speaker 1: United States were attempting to establish a new nation, and
Speaker 1: one of the many things he picked up well over
Speaker 1: in Europe was this concept of patents, and he felt
Speaker 1: that the United States would need its own way to
Speaker 1: protect ideas and inventions and innovation and experimentation. So he thought,
Speaker 1: this is something we need to establish in our new country.
Speaker 1: So in seventeen ninety, as Secretary of State, Thomas Jefferson
Speaker 1: supported a bill that would establish that the Secretary of State,
Speaker 1: the Secretary of War, and the Attorney General would serve
Speaker 1: as a tribunal and they would have the power to
Speaker 1: grant or deny patents. Even in the earliest version of
Speaker 1: this law, the government required that inventions pass a standard
Speaker 1: of being quote sufficiently useful and important end quote. If
Speaker 1: your invention didn't measure up to that standard, you were
Speaker 1: not going to get a patent for it. In fact,
Speaker 1: the tribunal was so strict that for the first year
Speaker 1: that patent law was even a thing in the United States,
Speaker 1: they granted only three patents. The very first one was
Speaker 1: for a process of making potash, which is used in fertilizer.
Speaker 1: George Washington gave that patent his John Hancock, which just
Speaker 1: wanted to say, because I'm lame and I think I'm funny.
Speaker 1: At this time, there was no numbering system for patents.
Speaker 1: So while Georgie Boyce signed the first patent into the US,
Speaker 1: that's not to say that podash patent was patent number one,
Speaker 1: because we didn't start numbering patents for like four more decades,
Speaker 1: and I imagine the filing system back in those days
Speaker 1: was a nightmare. In fact, I know it was because
Speaker 1: some of the leaders of the Patent Office went bonkers
Speaker 1: trying to fix it. Now, the original term of protection
Speaker 1: for a patent was fourteen years, and after fourteen years,
Speaker 1: the patent design would go into the public domain and
Speaker 1: anyone would be able to make use of that invention
Speaker 1: without committing patent infringement. This clause kept inventors from being
Speaker 1: able to hoard their own work, which Jefferson and others
Speaker 1: saw as a way of protecting the public so that
Speaker 1: the most people could benefit from inventions while the inventor
Speaker 1: would still enjoy a fairly long span of time as
Speaker 1: the exclusive rights holder, thought, being like, oh, yeah, you're
Speaker 1: going to be able to get rich in fourteen years,
Speaker 1: and after that then you know you had your time,
Speaker 1: and that invention needs to be sort of freed up
Speaker 1: so that more people can take advantage of it. The
Speaker 1: early version of this law also laid out that patent
Speaker 1: applications should include detailed drawings and, if possible, a model
Speaker 1: to demonstrate the working components. The model part would be
Speaker 1: really important for nearly a century, and this would help
Speaker 1: determine if the invention described was even possible, if it
Speaker 1: would even work, and to understand the underlying working elements
Speaker 1: of that invention. If your model was such that you
Speaker 1: could not see how this invention could possibly work when
Speaker 1: built at scale, that was a bad sign. So the
Speaker 1: model needed to be able to convey, yes, this is
Speaker 1: an idea that will work in the real world. One
Speaker 1: of the big issues with these models is that they
Speaker 1: took up a lot of space, right like, you had
Speaker 1: to find a place to put them and store them
Speaker 1: and preserve them, and that would become a huge challenge
Speaker 1: later on as more patent applications would pour in. Now,
Speaker 1: if you were an inventor, you could choose not to
Speaker 1: pursue a patent at all if you wanted to. You
Speaker 1: could just try and keep your design a secret. You
Speaker 1: could choose to not share drawings or models your invention,
Speaker 1: and maybe you make the thing and sell the thing,
Speaker 1: and you never bother to explain how the thing works
Speaker 1: to anyone else. So you might want to do that
Speaker 1: rather than describe and detail how your invention works, because
Speaker 1: that way you would be the one making all the
Speaker 1: decisions about your invention forever, or at least for as
Speaker 1: long as you're alive. However, if someone else were able
Speaker 1: to figure out how your invention works, then they could
Speaker 1: go and make their own version without going through you.
Speaker 1: And if you don't have a patent protecting your invention,
Speaker 1: you don't really have a lot of recourse. If your
Speaker 1: competitor is better at marketing and selling your invention than
Speaker 1: you are, you could find yourself at a major disadvantage.
Speaker 1: So while filing a patent requires you to explain how
Speaker 1: the heck your thing works, the protections you get from
Speaker 1: a patent can outweigh any concern about giving up your secrets,
Speaker 1: unless it's a trade secret you really want to protected.
Speaker 1: So yeah, that's another alternative to getting a patent, just
Speaker 1: not necessarily a wise one, depending upon what your invention is. Anyway,
Speaker 1: back to the history of patents in the US, so
Speaker 1: early inventors were starting to complain about the patent system
Speaker 1: that Jefferson had kind of overseen, and there's not really
Speaker 1: a big surprise there. When you have only three patent
Speaker 1: applications that make it all the way through to become
Speaker 1: patents in a full year, you might start to say
Speaker 1: the system is not working as intended. So some inventors
Speaker 1: complained that the people who are occupying the positions that
Speaker 1: were responsible for reviewing the patents were inherently biased against
Speaker 1: the industrial class, and there may have been some truth
Speaker 1: to that. The political leadership of the US largely came
Speaker 1: from more aristocratic lines, sometimes agrarian ones, Thomas Jefferson, for example.
Speaker 1: So we got a couple of revisions to pass law
Speaker 1: in the following years that changed things around in a
Speaker 1: major way. So in seventeen ninety three, just three years
Speaker 1: in to this grand experiment of four technically if you
Speaker 1: count like seventeen ninety one, ninety two and then ninety three,
Speaker 1: a big change happened. And that change was that it
Speaker 1: removed the tribunal's right to review applications and then reject
Speaker 1: them on the basis of lack of merit, so kind
Speaker 1: of like a drastic opposite of how things had been
Speaker 1: going up to that point. So essentially, the thought was
Speaker 1: that the Patent office should just grant patents regardless of
Speaker 1: whether the application demonstrated a useful or new invention or not.
Speaker 1: If they pays their money, they gets their patents. That
Speaker 1: was the thinking that would mean that the US court
Speaker 1: system would be responsible for hashing out all the different
Speaker 1: legal cases that involve problems with this approach. Remember, if
Speaker 1: if you're not able to review an reject a patent application,
Speaker 1: and someone patents an invention and then someone else tries
Speaker 1: to patent the same invention, you can't reject it. That
Speaker 1: means you grant a patent for both inventions, even though
Speaker 1: one clearly predated another, which kind of brings the whole
Speaker 1: question about who has those patent rights under fire right,
Speaker 1: And these are things that would end up going to courts,
Speaker 1: and then the courts would have to decide all this.
Speaker 1: So it was kind of passing the buck of this
Speaker 1: responsibility off to the court system. Not that the tribunal
Speaker 1: necessarily wanted this, but this is how the law was changed.
Speaker 1: So if you filed a patent for something simple that
Speaker 1: had already been around for ages, like you didn't actually
Speaker 1: invent something you just decided to file a patent for,
Speaker 1: like I don't know, a shovel, then technically, if you
Speaker 1: paid your application fee, then you would get your patent
Speaker 1: approved and you could theoretically use your patent to go
Speaker 1: after anyone who made a shovel that didn't pay you.
Speaker 1: Chances are that wouldn't really go very far in court,
Speaker 1: Like it wouldn't be a successful kind of tactic, but
Speaker 1: it would take up a lot of time, It would
Speaker 1: waste time, and it would be a real nuisance. And
Speaker 1: so yeah, this was a big change. Now, another set
Speaker 1: of revisions stated that only a US citizen would be
Speaker 1: able to receive a US patent. That rule would also
Speaker 1: evolve over time. You would have exceptions or some language
Speaker 1: that would change this a bit, like if someone had
Speaker 1: been in the country for at least two years and
Speaker 1: expressed a desire to become a US citizen, then they
Speaker 1: would be eligible for a patent. Then you know, this
Speaker 1: would change again. So this was an evolving concept. But
Speaker 1: there was a time where if you wanted to get
Speaker 1: a US patent you had to be a US citizen.
Speaker 1: Interesting because again, the United States had not existed for
Speaker 1: very long at all at this point. From seventeen ninety
Speaker 1: to eighteen oh two, there was a solitary clerk in
Speaker 1: the state department who oversaw operations because rapidly this whole
Speaker 1: tribunal approach essentially said, let's just make one person in
Speaker 1: charge of this and not have to take up department
Speaker 1: time with the leaders of three different departments coming together
Speaker 1: to make these decisions. So it became a clerk in
Speaker 1: the State Department who had to do it, and that
Speaker 1: was rough. So once you get to eighteen oh two,
Speaker 1: Jefferson then appoints a physician named doctor William Thornton as
Speaker 1: the Superintendent of the Patent Office, a position he would
Speaker 1: hold for twenty six years, and to this day, doctor
Speaker 1: Thornton stands out as the person who served as leader
Speaker 1: of the Patent Office for the longest tenure. Doctor Thornton
Speaker 1: was a highly educated man. He was born in the
Speaker 1: British Virgin Islands in seventeen fifty nine. He was sent
Speaker 1: to attend school in England. He ended up attending the
Speaker 1: University of Aberdeen and earned a medical degree. And interestingly,
Speaker 1: when he returned to the United States, he participated in
Speaker 1: a little competition. There was a competition to submit designs
Speaker 1: for what the US Capitol building should look like, so
Speaker 1: he created one and he won the competition. He would
Speaker 1: actually go on to design other buildings that would become
Speaker 1: famous landmarks in Washington, d C. Not all of which
Speaker 1: would survive. Due to something that's going to happen in
Speaker 1: just a few years. But yeah, he did this without
Speaker 1: any formal training in architecture. He was just really interested
Speaker 1: in it and submitted his designs and won. Anyway, he
Speaker 1: assumed the role of Patent Office Superintendent on June first,
Speaker 1: eighteen oh two, becoming the first superintendent of the United
Speaker 1: States Patent Office. Now, originally the title was more or
Speaker 1: less informal. There was like no official law that really
Speaker 1: established the office. In fact, he wasn't allowed to hire
Speaker 1: an assistant until eighteen ten, which meant he had to
Speaker 1: oversee all the work of the office personally. It was
Speaker 1: an office consisting of one person, and that was the superintendent.
Speaker 1: I think that's hilarious that you could be a superintendent
Speaker 1: and have no one to superintend I guess. Anyway, that
Speaker 1: year eighteen ten would also see the US government purchase
Speaker 1: a building that was called Blodgett's Hotel. So it was
Speaker 1: a building that was meant to be, you know, the
Speaker 1: sort of luxurious hotel. But from what I understand, apparently
Speaker 1: the money to build the hotel kind of ran out
Speaker 1: mid construction or toward the end of construction, and so
Speaker 1: it was not quite finished. So US Congress purchased this
Speaker 1: building and chose it to serve as the headquarters for
Speaker 1: both the United States Post Office and the Patent Office.
Speaker 1: That Post Office bit would later end up being very
Speaker 1: bad news, as it turns out. But again that's getting
Speaker 1: ahead of things. All right, let's take another quick break.
Speaker 1: When we come back, we'll close out this part one
Speaker 1: episode about the history of patent law and the Patent
Speaker 1: Office in the United States. Okay, we're back now. We
Speaker 1: left off in eighteen ten with the Blodget Hotel becoming
Speaker 1: the new home for the Post Office and the Patent Office,
Speaker 1: and doctor Thornton is well into his tenure as superintendent
Speaker 1: of the Patent Office. This would be the year when
Speaker 1: he would finally be able to hire an assistant. Well
Speaker 1: two years after that war broke out. Now fittingly, it
Speaker 1: was the War of eighteen twelve, so at least everything
Speaker 1: lined up so that the war was on time. However,
Speaker 1: that war actually lasted till eighteen fifteen, so it kind
Speaker 1: of overstated. It's welcome anyway. This war was primarily between
Speaker 1: America and the British, frequently fought through native proxies, like
Speaker 1: there were Native Americans who were fighting on behalf of
Speaker 1: America on one side and fighting on behalf of Britain
Speaker 1: on the other side. Now, to go into all the
Speaker 1: reasons about why there was a war in the first
Speaker 1: place is beyond the scope of this podcast. And besides,
Speaker 1: there's actually a lot of historical debate over what the
Speaker 1: heck really precipitated this war. I mean, there are a
Speaker 1: lot of different factors, and people argue over which ones
Speaker 1: were the most important. But for our episode, the important
Speaker 1: bit is that the patent office was in Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: And in eighteen fourteen, British forces captured Washington, d C.
Speaker 1: And all the government buildings were potentially in danger because
Speaker 1: they were important, and they were big, and they were
Speaker 1: great targets for setting stuff on fire. So the story
Speaker 1: goes that doctor Thornton prevailed upon the British to spare
Speaker 1: Blodget Hotel, arguing that the patents and the models within
Speaker 1: the hotel were for inventions that could benefit people all
Speaker 1: around the world, not just in the United States, and
Speaker 1: that if the British were to burn them all and
Speaker 1: destroy them, it would be inflicting severe self harm down
Speaker 1: the line, and that plea appeared to work. The British
Speaker 1: did not burn down the Blodget Hotel the way that
Speaker 1: they did with many other buildings, including the US Capital, which,
Speaker 1: if you recall, was based off of doctor Thornton's own design.
Speaker 1: In fact, Congress itself would have to temporarily move into
Speaker 1: the Blodget Hotel in eighteen fifteen as a result of
Speaker 1: having nowhere else to meet because the US Capitol was
Speaker 1: so badly damaged by fire and had to undergo extensive repairs.
Speaker 1: And just to be historically fair, while you know, you
Speaker 1: could say, wow, the British came in and started burning
Speaker 1: all these important buildings, isn't that terrible? We have to
Speaker 1: also keep in mind that the Americans had captured and
Speaker 1: raided and burned British held properties in Canada leading up
Speaker 1: to this, so neither side was innocent of this kind
Speaker 1: of behavior. They both had been perpetuating the sort of
Speaker 1: warfare against one another. So I don't want to just
Speaker 1: be unfair to the Brits. The Americans also got a
Speaker 1: little happy with the matchsticks. Doctor Thornton got into some
Speaker 1: fairly significant disputes during his time as Superintendent. For one thing,
Speaker 1: a major thing, he disagreed with the seventeen ninety three
Speaker 1: revisions to patent law that said he was not supposed
Speaker 1: to reject patents that failed to describe something that was
Speaker 1: new or useful. He thought, that is dumb. It's just
Speaker 1: ludicrous to give a blanket approval to any patent that
Speaker 1: happens to pay the application fee. So he largely ignored
Speaker 1: that rule. He just said, you know what, no, I'm
Speaker 1: gonna tell inventors that I'm not going to approve a
Speaker 1: patent if the invention they described isn't new or useful.
Speaker 1: So he became kind of the sole arbiter to decide
Speaker 1: if a patent was worthy or not. He also occasionally
Speaker 1: would list himself as an inventor or a co inventor
Speaker 1: on patents. I don't know to what extent he actually
Speaker 1: contributed to the invention. Maybe this was because he would
Speaker 1: sometimes work with applicants in order to get their patents
Speaker 1: in shape so that they could be approved. I don't
Speaker 1: know the answer to that, but it did bring into
Speaker 1: question his ethics, like is he just listing himself so
Speaker 1: that he can enjoy some of the reward of this
Speaker 1: invention going into production. He was involved in a fracaw
Speaker 1: or fracas. If you're down here in the South with
Speaker 1: Robert Fulton that was the inventor of the steamboat. Fulton
Speaker 1: was finding it very frustrating to work with the Patent Office,
Speaker 1: and this might be because that doctor Thornton was also
Speaker 1: close friends with a guy named John Fitch, who was
Speaker 1: a contemporary and competitor to mister Fulton, which just goes
Speaker 1: to show that conflicts of interest have always been a thing. Now,
Speaker 1: Doctor Thornton served as Superintendent of the Patent Office until
Speaker 1: eighteen twenty eight, and he stopped then, like he totally stopped,
Speaker 1: because you know, he died. The next person to hold
Speaker 1: the office would be Thomas P. Jones, another scientist and physician,
Speaker 1: and that came as quite a shock to a guy
Speaker 1: named William Elliot. William Elliott had been doctor Thornton's chief clerk,
Speaker 1: sort of his right hand man, and Elliott had assumed
Speaker 1: that he would be promoted to superintendent upon doctor Thornton's passing,
Speaker 1: but that did not happen, and so the seeds were
Speaker 1: sown for some major drama in the US Patent Office.
Speaker 1: But with that bit of foreshadowing, we're going to bring
Speaker 1: this episode to an end and we will pick up
Speaker 1: here tomorrow with tomorrow's episode. Just a reminder, as I said,
Speaker 1: on Friday, I will be in Las Vegas at the
Speaker 1: iHeart House of Music, which is free. It's outside the
Speaker 1: T Mobile Arena. It's part of the festival, but it's
Speaker 1: a free part of the festival, So if you want
Speaker 1: to swing by and say hi on Friday, I'll be
Speaker 1: out there. I'll be the bald guy getting ready to
Speaker 1: podcast at six pm. I hope to see you there,
Speaker 1: and I hope you're all well, and I'll talk to
Speaker 1: you again really soon. Tech Stuff is an iHeartRadio production.
Speaker 1: For more podcasts from iHeartRadio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
Speaker 1: or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.