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Speaker 1: Get in touch with technology with tech Stuff from how

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Speaker 1: Stuff works dot com. Hey guys, welcome to Tech Stuff.

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Speaker 1: I'm your host, Jonathan Strickland, and today is another Saturday

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Speaker 1: morning rerun episode where we take a classic episode of

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Speaker 1: tech Stuff and we play it for you in case

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Speaker 1: you didn't have a chance to listen to it when

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Speaker 1: it originally aired. I mean, this show has been going

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Speaker 1: on for ten years, so I know not everybody can

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Speaker 1: do a deep dive into the archives, and this one

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Speaker 1: I think is really really exciting. Now. Throughout the history

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Speaker 1: of tech Stuff, I've had the opportunity to have lots

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Speaker 1: of different interesting guests on the show, including other hosts

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Speaker 1: of How Stuff Work shows, And in this episode, Holly Fry,

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Speaker 1: one of the co hosts of Stuff You Missed in

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Speaker 1: History Class, joined the show to talk about an enormous

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Speaker 1: patent war and and not talking about Samsung and Apple,

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Speaker 1: I'm talking about sewing machines. Yep, the Humble sewing machine

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Speaker 1: was the centerpiece of a patent war that got pretty ugly,

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Speaker 1: and Holly and I talked not just about that, but

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Speaker 1: about the technology and its cultural impact. This episode originally

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Speaker 1: published on October thirteenth, two thousand and fourteen. I hope

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Speaker 1: you enjoy this classic episode of tech Stuff. 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 government some form of agency that

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Speaker 1: has authority to an inventor or an assignee for the

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: to have a full invention. Let's say it's a washing machine,

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Speaker 1: because we've done a tech Stuff episode about washing machines,

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

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Speaker 1: machines so that they wash clothes uh more thoroughly or

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Speaker 1: without as much bashing around, so the clothing doesn't take

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Speaker 1: as much of a beating. And you come up with

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Speaker 1: that that improvement, and then you patent it. You can

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Speaker 1: do that, that's perfectly acceptable, and then any washing machine

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Speaker 1: that would use that particular improvement would have to either

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Speaker 1: have been made by you or have received your permission

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Speaker 1: to use that specific technology. Yes, so patents can be

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

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Speaker 1: it can be just a tiny little thing that's an improvement.

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Speaker 1: The point of it is the reason why you would

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Speaker 1: want to patent it is that you get those exclusive

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Speaker 1: rights to use that technology. Now, in return for that,

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Speaker 1: you have to disclose how that technology works. You submit

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Speaker 1: a patent application that has a full description of the

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

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Speaker 1: publicly available, and once the patent expires, which they do,

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Speaker 1: anyone can actus that information and make use of it.

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Speaker 1: But during the course of that patent, that the lifespan

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Speaker 1: of that patent, it's all you, boss. They got to

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Speaker 1: come through you. Yeah, Although that is an interesting one

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Speaker 1: related to what we're talking about today, because there were

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Speaker 1: several instances on the road to the sewing machine actually

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Speaker 1: becoming a fully fledged thing where there were some FIBs

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Speaker 1: told in the patent filings that they could keep their

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Speaker 1: proprietary information to themselves, so when people tried to replicate them,

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Speaker 1: they did not always work. Right. See, you could if

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Speaker 1: you wanted to, if you invented something, there's nothing nothing

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Speaker 1: that requires you to get a patent, you could keep

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Speaker 1: it secret and say this magical technology is mine and

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Speaker 1: mine alone. But the danger of that, of course, is

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Speaker 1: if someone gets hold of it and figures out how

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Speaker 1: it works, they could then make the same thing with

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Speaker 1: and you would have no protection. Only could they make

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Speaker 1: the same thing, they could file a patent for it,

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Speaker 1: and then you would no longer be able to use

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Speaker 1: the thing you invented. Yeah, it's all about first rights

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Speaker 1: so as it turns out, And we haven't even gotten

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Speaker 1: into the complication of filing for a patent in one

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Speaker 1: country versus filing for a paton and another. But we

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Speaker 1: we've hemmed in hod long enough about patents. Let's start off.

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Speaker 1: Tell me what what was sewing before the sewing machine. Well,

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Speaker 1: most people would probably recognize it if they thought about

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Speaker 1: pre sewing machines sewing, they would think of an needle

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Speaker 1: and thread. But even way before that, there were people

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Speaker 1: using bones and sticks to kind of poke holes into fabrics,

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Speaker 1: usually leathers, and then they would pass a lace through.

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Speaker 1: It was not all one continuous thing where the lace

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Speaker 1: was attached to the the boner stick, and then they

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Speaker 1: added the eye that circle that the whatever you're lacing

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Speaker 1: material passes through. The thing that confounds me whenever I

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Speaker 1: have to threaten. Many people say that I think you

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Speaker 1: either 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 they're 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 am, 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: worked out 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

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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: um had was pointed on both ends, and it had

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Speaker 1: an eye, but the eye was in the middle, which

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Speaker 1: is not If anybody knows a modern sewing machine or

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Speaker 1: hand sewing needle, the eye is usually not in the middle. Right,

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Speaker 1: So then we moved forward his s We have Thomas

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Speaker 1: sat who I love the title of his patent. We

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Speaker 1: talked about this in the History podcast. It's a succinct.

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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 Vanish, 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, something's

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

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Speaker 1: in this pattern. 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: it 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, it's probably one of those

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Speaker 1: things where we thought, goodness, gracious, this is a lot

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Speaker 1: of work. Let's let's just lump it all together. One

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Speaker 1: very wordy document will cover me. So the second part

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Speaker 1: of his patent was actually the one for stitching, and

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Speaker 1: it really wasn't terribly practical. It had a lot of

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Speaker 1: components that we actually associate with modern showing machines. So

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Speaker 1: it had the arm with the needle, it had continuous

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Speaker 1: thread from a spool, uh, and it had a table

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Speaker 1: set up that the cloth would sit on. And those

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Speaker 1: all still persist in some form or another. But his

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Speaker 1: is a case where there's no actual example of his

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: a little bit ago, where the suspicion is that he

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Speaker 1: didn't entirely disclose what he was getting. 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, and it has to

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: stage design. Yeah, you don't have to bring one in

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Speaker 1: and say, well, here, let me put it in motion

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Speaker 1: and show you that all the parts move the way

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Speaker 1: I've described it in the patent. It really is just

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Speaker 1: meant to prevent other people from making that same design

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Speaker 1: without your permission. All right. Well, then in eight four

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Speaker 1: we've got this story about Thomas Stone and James Henderson

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Speaker 1: who were issued a patent in France for their own

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Speaker 1: kind of sewing machine. Right. Yeah. It kind of created

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Speaker 1: an overcast stich. So if you don't know what that is,

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Speaker 1: I do not. If you see like a situation where

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Speaker 1: two pieces of cloth are bound together and there's a

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Speaker 1: stitch that passes through each one and kind of spirals

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Speaker 1: around the edges and then back through, that's an overcast

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Speaker 1: all right, Um, so this was similar. It's also called

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Speaker 1: a whip stitch when you do it by hand, so

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Speaker 1: it was very simple. But it could work on all

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Speaker 1: different kinds of fabrics, and it was able to stitch curves. Okay,

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Speaker 1: so it's not just a straight line like some of

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Speaker 1: the other devices will be talking about. Correct, Like a

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Speaker 1: lot of them will only go in a straight line,

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Speaker 1: but this one could handle curves. The one big drawback

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Speaker 1: of it, though, was that it did not have a

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Speaker 1: continuous thread feed, so there was a lot of stopping

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Speaker 1: and going and re threading of needles and fitting. So

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Speaker 1: it saved time. We think theoretically, I say that with

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Speaker 1: a question mark on purpose, right, then may maybe it

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Speaker 1: saves time for someone who just really hates the motion

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Speaker 1: of actually making a stitch well, or if you're doing

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Speaker 1: like large scale things like leathers and probably help. So

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Speaker 1: that's same year you have John Duncan of Glasgow here

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Speaker 1: patenting an embroidery machine, which is not quite the same

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Speaker 1: thing as a stitching machine. Correct. I mean it does

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Speaker 1: do stitches, but it's not the same sort of utilitarian

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Speaker 1: things that would hold together pants, right. Uh, they will

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

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Speaker 1: better experience. Uh. 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, and

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Speaker 1: 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 I aloud a

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

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Speaker 1: pass all the way through the fabric. It could just

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Speaker 1: puncture it, uh slightly and then pull back out and

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Speaker 1: make the stitch that way, right, which is how modern

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Speaker 1: machines still were for the most part. I think there's

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Speaker 1: a couple of special tea machines that do different things.

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Speaker 1: But yeah, so it had two needles. One, as you said,

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Speaker 1: punched in and passed the thread down, another kind of

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Speaker 1: shuttled through it, and then it got pulled back up.

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Speaker 1: So um, continuous stitching via these two different thread feeds. Cool.

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Speaker 1: And then we have what my favorite name on our lists,

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Speaker 1: one of my favorites eight thirty So it's Bartelomy Timonier.

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

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Speaker 1: Is 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 thing it'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. So that's

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Speaker 1: what I always get nervous now whenever I see a

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Speaker 1: loose thread. And I'm more of a snipper than a

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Speaker 1: than a tugger at this. I'm a yanker, but I

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Speaker 1: know I can fix it if it all goes 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'll come right back to our discussion

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Speaker 1: about the Great Patent Wars and the sewing machine in

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Speaker 1: just a second, but first let's take a quick break

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Speaker 1: to thank our sponsor. Well. I love about this story

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Speaker 1: is it's interesting because it's a real life story that

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Speaker 1: mirrors something that is um a popular misconception. And what

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Speaker 1: I mean by that is in the story you have

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Speaker 1: Toumonier who had a shop in Paris, Uh. He had

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Speaker 1: lots of these different machines, eighty of them working at

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Speaker 1: a time, and Taylor's people who sewed by hand, stormed

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Speaker 1: his store and destroyed some of the machinery because they

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Speaker 1: didn't want to be put out of a job. And

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Speaker 1: the reason why I say this is interesting is that

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Speaker 1: there's a story that we have told on tech stuff

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Speaker 1: before that is erroneous and uh. And in fact I

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Speaker 1: have been guilty of of pushing this forward. The idea

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Speaker 1: of sabotage being named after sabo, as in the French

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Speaker 1: word for shoe. The story is that you had uh.

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Speaker 1: Often it was told about weavers who came in and

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Speaker 1: threw their shoes into large mechanized looms in order to

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Speaker 1: foul the workings and destroy them. As it turns out,

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Speaker 1: that's not necessarily true. The first the first appearance of

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Speaker 1: the word sabotage doesn't come until in the written word,

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Speaker 1: as far as I can tell, until which tells me

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Speaker 1: that this incident, which happened in around the mid eighteen hundreds,

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Speaker 1: could have given birth to a word involving tailors that

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Speaker 1: would have replaced sabotage, and they just didn't capitalize on it.

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Speaker 1: I wanted to include Timonier somehow Timony as I got

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Speaker 1: totally Timoniate today at work in and they just ambushed me. Yeah.

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Speaker 1: So they came and destroyed his shop and he had

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Speaker 1: to flee. And he did get financial backing, uh so

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Speaker 1: that he could continue his work and develop new machines.

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Speaker 1: But unfortunately, uh, and he got some additional patents as well,

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Speaker 1: both in France and in Britain. But the revolution kind

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

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Speaker 1: He turns out there were some important things that people

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Speaker 1: were attending to at the time. Yeah, not so much

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Speaker 1: with the let's make machines. Now we've got an American

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Speaker 1: inventor coming up next, so let's just take a moment

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Speaker 1: to go America. Well, and he becomes very important in

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Speaker 1: the patent battles, so as is Walter Hunt you're talking

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Speaker 1: about here. Yeah. So he made a machine that it

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Speaker 1: created a lock stitch used to thread sources, very similar

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Speaker 1: to the bobbing and school method you would see on

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Speaker 1: modern machines. Um and this you know, of course, was

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Speaker 1: different than the single thread chain stitch of Timoni. A

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Speaker 1: successful machines and he kind of was a busy bee

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Speaker 1: he had a lot of inventions going at the same time,

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Speaker 1: and so it wasn't like this sewing machine was his

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Speaker 1: baby and he had really put his heart and soul

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Speaker 1: into it. He was kind of like, no, nobody's ever

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

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

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Speaker 1: the patent. He just sold I go. That's why he

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Speaker 1: didn't even patent his invention. 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 going straight lines. You couldn't

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Speaker 1: really work curves with it, right, so that that certainly

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

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

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

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

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

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

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Speaker 1: out patents are flammable. Yes, no one had pended the

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Speaker 1: 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 file it 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 copy. 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 he just abandoned

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

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Speaker 1: was only a year later when the second US patent

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

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Speaker 1: to Benjamin W. Bean which is a great name, I know. Um,

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Speaker 1: and he created a unique development and that his machine

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Speaker 1: was the first that actually fed the fabrics through gears.

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Speaker 1: So for the stitchers in the house, all three of us. Um,

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Speaker 1: that's similar to feed dogs. And if you don't stitch

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Speaker 1: what a feed dog is. If you've ever looked at

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Speaker 1: the sewing machine, you may see these two. They almost

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Speaker 1: look like little feet that come up and kind of

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Speaker 1: kick at your fabric as you're sewing, and they have

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Speaker 1: rigid edges and that's kind of pulling your fabric through

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Speaker 1: as you go right, so you don't have to put

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

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Speaker 1: misguiding the fabric. So it helps feed the fabric through

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Speaker 1: as you're stitching. Yes, sometimes it creates great drama and

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Speaker 1: it eats fabric, but not very often. Um and his

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Speaker 1: also had a clamp mechanism to attach it to a table,

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Speaker 1: so that was also a new development. Uh, and there's

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Speaker 1: still machines made that do that. Also that year, in

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Speaker 1: eighteen forty three, we got George H. Corliss, who uh

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Speaker 1: you know, he was also a busy body making making

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Speaker 1: a steam engine. That's pretty cool. We did a full

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Speaker 1: episode in Tech Stuff on steam engine. So if you

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Speaker 1: guys are are big into that and you really want

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Speaker 1: to know about the development of the steam engine, here's

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Speaker 1: a here's an interesting little effect. The original steam engines

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Speaker 1: didn't push with steam. They rather would pull by letting

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Speaker 1: steam condense and create a vacuum, thus pulling a piston

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Speaker 1: down rather than pushing a piston out. But we go

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Speaker 1: into full detail and tech stuff, so I don't need

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Speaker 1: to redo the whole thing. This pretty cool stuff. It

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

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Speaker 1: But ump. So Corliss had what's considered the third u

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Speaker 1: S sewing machine patents. His performed what is called a

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

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Speaker 1: this day to join leather together. Uh, it kind of

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Speaker 1: keeps it all stable. If anybody has ever tried to

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Speaker 1: sew with leather, if you've had like a leather pouch

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Speaker 1: or anything, Uh, it can present some challenges in terms

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Speaker 1: of how it because it's so rugged usually and tough,

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Speaker 1: it will chew on threads and or even if you

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Speaker 1: have a lacing lacing even though it's leather, also we'll

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Speaker 1: kind of get chewed up over time. So a saddle

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Speaker 1: stitch kind of gives you a tighter stitch and it

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Speaker 1: prevents some of that friction. Okay. Cool, And then also

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Speaker 1: just a year later, in eighteen forty four, we've got

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Speaker 1: James Rogers getting the fourth US sewing machine pen And

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

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Speaker 1: The pen wars will make all clear. Everybody's gonna be

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Speaker 1: really apparent, and I mean, it's it's it's important because

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00:20:47,480 --> 00:20:51,280
Speaker 1: again we're trying to illustrate the fact that a lot

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Speaker 1: of these patents were not revolutionary devices that completely reinvented

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Speaker 1: the machine. They were sometimes incremental improvements that had a

397
00:21:00,880 --> 00:21:05,399
Speaker 1: remarkable difference from earlier machines, but it was one tiny element, right,

398
00:21:05,560 --> 00:21:11,320
Speaker 1: not necessarily a full reworking. Yeah, so yeah, James Rogers

399
00:21:11,359 --> 00:21:15,000
Speaker 1: patent was really only had a tiny change to Bean's design,

400
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Speaker 1: and that was that the gears were kind of in

401
00:21:17,160 --> 00:21:21,080
Speaker 1: a different place and that allowed him to be able

402
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Speaker 1: to design a different needle that was shaped a little

403
00:21:23,280 --> 00:21:26,760
Speaker 1: more simply and would be easier to replicate. Um. And

404
00:21:26,880 --> 00:21:31,040
Speaker 1: so pretty much every patent that came after this used

405
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Speaker 1: this simpler setup that built on Bean's design. So I

406
00:21:34,520 --> 00:21:37,520
Speaker 1: really set a precedent here. But now we're going to

407
00:21:37,680 --> 00:21:39,800
Speaker 1: the start of the show. Okay, who's the star of

408
00:21:39,800 --> 00:21:43,040
Speaker 1: the show because not being a big sewing machine guy,

409
00:21:44,200 --> 00:21:47,359
Speaker 1: but you watched Schoolhouse Rock growing up, right, I did

410
00:21:47,520 --> 00:21:50,440
Speaker 1: he was in it was he? Yeah? In the Mother

411
00:21:50,520 --> 00:21:55,639
Speaker 1: Necessity episode, I'll have to go watch my DVDs, theres alias,

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Speaker 1: can you help me with my sewing? So it's an

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Speaker 1: alias here we're talking and about Elias Howe Jr. Yes,

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00:22:02,840 --> 00:22:04,560
Speaker 1: all right, And there's even a play on his name

415
00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:06,840
Speaker 1: where he tells her he's gonna fix everything and she

416
00:22:06,880 --> 00:22:10,160
Speaker 1: says Alias how And it's very witty to the sewing

417
00:22:10,200 --> 00:22:17,160
Speaker 1: nerds in right, all three of youth. So Elias Howe

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Speaker 1: was born in Spencer, Massachusetts in eighteen nineteen. Uh, and

419
00:22:22,840 --> 00:22:25,399
Speaker 1: when he was a teenager, he decided to go and

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Speaker 1: seek his fortune as a machinist, which was a brand

421
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Speaker 1: new job in the Industrial Revolution. Yeah, he was kind

422
00:22:31,359 --> 00:22:33,480
Speaker 1: of he had some bravado. He was not afraid of

423
00:22:33,600 --> 00:22:35,679
Speaker 1: kind of breaking out on his own and making his

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Speaker 1: way in the world. He certainly didn't appear to be

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Speaker 1: shy once we get into the back noors. Now, he

426
00:22:40,520 --> 00:22:44,439
Speaker 1: was a very smart man. Yeah, so he's going to

427
00:22:44,680 --> 00:22:48,119
Speaker 1: Uh he ends up as a machinist overhearing some talk

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00:22:48,320 --> 00:22:52,919
Speaker 1: about the idea of of a sewing machine and starts

429
00:22:52,920 --> 00:22:57,359
Speaker 1: to kind of apply his own ingenuity. How would I

430
00:22:57,600 --> 00:23:01,880
Speaker 1: achieve this sort of thing. So he's important to remember, yeah,

431
00:23:01,920 --> 00:23:04,399
Speaker 1: and he um So he was granted the fifth U S.

432
00:23:04,440 --> 00:23:08,119
Speaker 1: Patent in September of eighteen forty six. And it's one

433
00:23:08,160 --> 00:23:09,840
Speaker 1: of those things that I have to laugh because every

434
00:23:09,880 --> 00:23:12,600
Speaker 1: year when September comes around, you see the today on

435
00:23:12,680 --> 00:23:15,320
Speaker 1: this day, Alias how invented the sewing machine, and I'm like,

436
00:23:15,359 --> 00:23:17,840
Speaker 1: back up the truck. Not entirely accurate, right, It's like

437
00:23:17,920 --> 00:23:20,240
Speaker 1: like you know, as An invented the light bulb, all right, No,

438
00:23:20,480 --> 00:23:23,679
Speaker 1: as an improved and not a Eureka moment where it

439
00:23:23,720 --> 00:23:26,520
Speaker 1: comes from nowhere, although he did sometimes say that like

440
00:23:26,640 --> 00:23:29,720
Speaker 1: he had it kind of fully universally on his own.

441
00:23:29,800 --> 00:23:33,840
Speaker 1: It's very tesla like to um So. This was patent

442
00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:37,040
Speaker 1: number four thousand, seven fifty in the United States. You know,

443
00:23:37,080 --> 00:23:38,919
Speaker 1: the previous one we gave. The number two was the

444
00:23:38,920 --> 00:23:42,600
Speaker 1: British patent. So in both cases you see that these

445
00:23:42,640 --> 00:23:46,120
Speaker 1: are very very early on during the patent offices existence. Yeah,

446
00:23:46,119 --> 00:23:48,119
Speaker 1: they're numbering schemes were kind of neck and neck in

447
00:23:48,240 --> 00:23:50,520
Speaker 1: terms of where they were at in terms of um

448
00:23:50,760 --> 00:23:55,520
Speaker 1: uh accession order. Um So, this patent was actually his

449
00:23:55,600 --> 00:23:57,880
Speaker 1: second version of the machine that he patented he had

450
00:23:57,880 --> 00:24:01,640
Speaker 1: another prototype a year before that was capable of sewing,

451
00:24:01,760 --> 00:24:04,920
Speaker 1: but he um, he fine tuned it a little bit more.

452
00:24:05,240 --> 00:24:09,960
Speaker 1: And house patent is very important because it makes five

453
00:24:10,160 --> 00:24:12,880
Speaker 1: very specific claims about how the machine is going to work,

454
00:24:13,800 --> 00:24:18,320
Speaker 1: and they come up a lot in court battles like yeah,

455
00:24:18,359 --> 00:24:20,439
Speaker 1: so this is where I was talking about how you

456
00:24:20,480 --> 00:24:23,680
Speaker 1: can make claims within a patent and those claims will

457
00:24:23,720 --> 00:24:29,040
Speaker 1: protect elements of your invention. And claims can be everything

458
00:24:29,160 --> 00:24:34,760
Speaker 1: from specific physical uh mechanical ways that the machine works

459
00:24:34,800 --> 00:24:39,959
Speaker 1: to UH specific method like an implementation. We see that

460
00:24:40,040 --> 00:24:43,600
Speaker 1: today in ways that are are less um they're they're

461
00:24:43,600 --> 00:24:46,320
Speaker 1: more difficult to understand because if you're talking about a

462
00:24:46,320 --> 00:24:49,600
Speaker 1: physical machine, you can say the physical machine does it

463
00:24:49,760 --> 00:24:52,320
Speaker 1: in this way, and you can see whether or not

464
00:24:52,600 --> 00:24:54,640
Speaker 1: the machine is actually doing it in that way. When

465
00:24:54,680 --> 00:24:57,520
Speaker 1: we talk about today, we're talking about stuff like you know,

466
00:24:57,840 --> 00:25:02,160
Speaker 1: resizing images by pinching or or moving your fingers further

467
00:25:02,240 --> 00:25:05,320
Speaker 1: apart from each other, and it starts to get a

468
00:25:05,359 --> 00:25:09,400
Speaker 1: little wibbly wobbly time you whiney when you are trying

469
00:25:09,480 --> 00:25:11,399
Speaker 1: to say, oh, well, this is this is a method

470
00:25:11,680 --> 00:25:14,720
Speaker 1: that is unique that I came up with, and no

471
00:25:14,720 --> 00:25:16,639
Speaker 1: one else can use it unless they come through me.

472
00:25:17,240 --> 00:25:20,359
Speaker 1: That's it's one of those evolutions of the patent office

473
00:25:20,400 --> 00:25:24,160
Speaker 1: that we're still trying to kind of reconcile. Yeah, it's

474
00:25:24,200 --> 00:25:26,080
Speaker 1: not all black and white, which is why you get

475
00:25:26,119 --> 00:25:28,800
Speaker 1: into these huge battles and arguments and things go to court,

476
00:25:28,840 --> 00:25:31,280
Speaker 1: and you hear about Apple having to pay money, but

477
00:25:31,320 --> 00:25:34,800
Speaker 1: then Samsung has to fail the money right, and sometimes

478
00:25:34,840 --> 00:25:38,359
Speaker 1: they just sometimes everyone just ends up like, well, let's

479
00:25:38,400 --> 00:25:40,000
Speaker 1: just all say we gave each other the money we

480
00:25:40,040 --> 00:25:43,640
Speaker 1: were supposed to and call today. But anyway, there were

481
00:25:43,720 --> 00:25:46,600
Speaker 1: these five elements. Did you want to cover any of them?

482
00:25:46,840 --> 00:25:49,320
Speaker 1: You have all of them written out here are and

483
00:25:49,320 --> 00:25:51,520
Speaker 1: they're written out long because I cut and pasted it

484
00:25:51,560 --> 00:25:55,399
Speaker 1: from another document. I'll kind of do the short version. Okay.

485
00:25:55,520 --> 00:25:57,639
Speaker 1: So the first was he describes how he's going to

486
00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:00,919
Speaker 1: form a seam by using a curve needle to go

487
00:26:01,040 --> 00:26:04,760
Speaker 1: through the cloth and a bobbin to kind of connect

488
00:26:04,760 --> 00:26:08,040
Speaker 1: to that and and make the stitch, similar to how

489
00:26:08,040 --> 00:26:11,480
Speaker 1: we've talked about before this to thread version. The second

490
00:26:11,600 --> 00:26:13,359
Speaker 1: is how this thread is going to get lifted and

491
00:26:13,440 --> 00:26:16,120
Speaker 1: pass through the needle eye. There's a lifting rod involved

492
00:26:16,119 --> 00:26:20,280
Speaker 1: that's very important. The third is how the thread is

493
00:26:20,320 --> 00:26:23,240
Speaker 1: going to be passed out by the shuttle, so it

494
00:26:23,280 --> 00:26:24,800
Speaker 1: has a lot to do with the tension and how

495
00:26:24,840 --> 00:26:29,359
Speaker 1: it passes through at a consistent rate. The fourth is

496
00:26:29,640 --> 00:26:33,800
Speaker 1: um how a couple of levers go together and enact

497
00:26:34,320 --> 00:26:37,160
Speaker 1: their sort of mechanisms on the string or the thread

498
00:26:37,240 --> 00:26:40,960
Speaker 1: that's involved. And the fifth is how the cloth is

499
00:26:41,000 --> 00:26:45,040
Speaker 1: held in place by a baster plate, uh, which is

500
00:26:45,560 --> 00:26:47,560
Speaker 1: still a thing that happens like now, if you drop

501
00:26:47,600 --> 00:26:50,160
Speaker 1: your foot down on your machine, it's kind of pressing

502
00:26:50,200 --> 00:26:52,400
Speaker 1: the cloth onto the plate of your machine, and that's

503
00:26:52,400 --> 00:26:54,080
Speaker 1: that keeps it from going just flying away when you're

504
00:26:54,080 --> 00:26:57,320
Speaker 1: trying to stitch on it very important as I understand it,

505
00:26:57,400 --> 00:27:00,680
Speaker 1: in the sewing process. Yes, most machines made today won't

506
00:27:01,040 --> 00:27:02,760
Speaker 1: won't stitch at all if you don't have the press

507
00:27:02,800 --> 00:27:05,119
Speaker 1: your foot down because they know they'll just be wasting

508
00:27:05,119 --> 00:27:09,480
Speaker 1: everyone's time. So how didn't meet with immediate success with

509
00:27:09,560 --> 00:27:13,640
Speaker 1: this design? Actually, he tried for a while to get

510
00:27:13,640 --> 00:27:16,439
Speaker 1: people here in the United States excited about it, and

511
00:27:16,480 --> 00:27:19,080
Speaker 1: no one seemed to really give him much attention. So

512
00:27:19,240 --> 00:27:24,840
Speaker 1: he ended up selling the patent rights to a or

513
00:27:24,880 --> 00:27:26,960
Speaker 1: at least the British patent rights, I should say to

514
00:27:27,000 --> 00:27:31,920
Speaker 1: William Thomas for the princely sum of two fifty British

515
00:27:31,960 --> 00:27:35,880
Speaker 1: pounds sterling. Uh and uh, I like, I like the other.

516
00:27:35,920 --> 00:27:38,760
Speaker 1: Note here He also adapted his machine to make umbrellas

517
00:27:38,800 --> 00:27:42,840
Speaker 1: and corsets. That's fabulous. Yeah, I mean, I'm in the

518
00:27:42,920 --> 00:27:45,600
Speaker 1: market are both right now? So well, when we talked

519
00:27:45,640 --> 00:27:48,800
Speaker 1: about this on History, Tracy was saying, I never thought

520
00:27:48,840 --> 00:27:50,919
Speaker 1: about it before, but umbrellas, of course, it's really are

521
00:27:51,040 --> 00:27:53,520
Speaker 1: quite a lot alike, and that you know, you have

522
00:27:53,560 --> 00:27:56,919
Speaker 1: a casing and should have these rigid elements that passed

523
00:27:56,960 --> 00:27:58,919
Speaker 1: through it and hold it all in shape. And at

524
00:27:58,960 --> 00:28:00,920
Speaker 1: this point it would have been all deal bone, course tree.

525
00:28:00,960 --> 00:28:03,760
Speaker 1: So it was very similar to an umbrella, right, except

526
00:28:03,800 --> 00:28:07,119
Speaker 1: that the main difference, at least in my experience, is

527
00:28:07,200 --> 00:28:10,719
Speaker 1: that it's a relief to have an umbrella and a

528
00:28:10,720 --> 00:28:13,479
Speaker 1: relief to get rid of a courset. Don't get it started.

529
00:28:13,480 --> 00:28:15,439
Speaker 1: Of courses are good for you if they're well fitted.

530
00:28:15,800 --> 00:28:18,080
Speaker 1: They protect your back, they give you a great posture.

531
00:28:18,560 --> 00:28:20,919
Speaker 1: Those tight lasers are a whole different universe. Yeah. I

532
00:28:20,960 --> 00:28:23,800
Speaker 1: worked at the Georgia Renaissance Festival, so I have a

533
00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:29,880
Speaker 1: very specific experience of watching ladies. A good foundation courset

534
00:28:30,400 --> 00:28:32,679
Speaker 1: will keep your clothes in place that holds up all

535
00:28:32,720 --> 00:28:35,480
Speaker 1: those Victorian layers if it's a Victorian courset. So I'm

536
00:28:35,560 --> 00:28:37,280
Speaker 1: kind of going from the time period we're talking about.

537
00:28:37,560 --> 00:28:40,360
Speaker 1: They're they're not mystery torture devices. Well really were not

538
00:28:40,400 --> 00:28:42,680
Speaker 1: intended for that. You will clearly need to have you

539
00:28:42,720 --> 00:28:45,920
Speaker 1: come in and give a talk because because those ladies,

540
00:28:46,000 --> 00:28:47,840
Speaker 1: let me tell there is a lot of technology and

541
00:28:47,840 --> 00:28:51,120
Speaker 1: physics and of course I'm got to support from below

542
00:28:51,320 --> 00:28:55,080
Speaker 1: or from above. It's fabulous. Well, moving on in the

543
00:28:55,080 --> 00:28:57,800
Speaker 1: the evolution of the sewing machine, we move up to

544
00:28:58,840 --> 00:29:03,880
Speaker 1: and the six you wes sewing machine patent from John A. Bradshaw,

545
00:29:04,600 --> 00:29:07,520
Speaker 1: which was a little bit snarky, was it. Yeah? He

546
00:29:07,600 --> 00:29:11,360
Speaker 1: talks about how is patent design his patent and kind

547
00:29:11,360 --> 00:29:14,320
Speaker 1: of says that it's bungling and it's an incumbrance to

548
00:29:14,360 --> 00:29:16,680
Speaker 1: the action of the machine when he talks about the needle.

549
00:29:16,960 --> 00:29:21,040
Speaker 1: So not only can how not get manufacturers interested in

550
00:29:21,120 --> 00:29:26,440
Speaker 1: his device, he has the next uh patent UH petitioner

551
00:29:27,280 --> 00:29:30,640
Speaker 1: completely dis him totally trash in his work. Even while

552
00:29:30,680 --> 00:29:33,040
Speaker 1: he's building on it, he's still kind of like he

553
00:29:33,080 --> 00:29:35,160
Speaker 1: was onto something but I I really have this thing

554
00:29:35,240 --> 00:29:38,080
Speaker 1: figured out, Like, okay, well I can tell you why

555
00:29:38,120 --> 00:29:42,240
Speaker 1: it didn't do great when the manufacturers wonderful. So et

556
00:29:42,680 --> 00:29:45,800
Speaker 1: nine we get how coming back to the United States. Uh,

557
00:29:45,840 --> 00:29:48,440
Speaker 1: he had gone to England, like we said to say,

558
00:29:48,640 --> 00:29:52,520
Speaker 1: to sell the British patent off. And when he comes

559
00:29:52,520 --> 00:29:55,720
Speaker 1: back he sees that that that what had been kind

560
00:29:55,720 --> 00:29:59,360
Speaker 1: of a quiet, little tiny niche industry was starting to

561
00:29:59,400 --> 00:30:03,600
Speaker 1: take off. Yeah. The seventh patent for the sewing machine

562
00:30:03,600 --> 00:30:06,040
Speaker 1: have been issued to Charles Morey and Joseph B. Johnson

563
00:30:06,040 --> 00:30:09,320
Speaker 1: in eighteen forty nine, and they were really some of

564
00:30:09,320 --> 00:30:10,960
Speaker 1: the first two that were like, we need to start

565
00:30:11,040 --> 00:30:12,720
Speaker 1: selling this and making a bunch of them. And even

566
00:30:12,720 --> 00:30:16,120
Speaker 1: before they received their patent, they were selling machine, which

567
00:30:16,160 --> 00:30:18,520
Speaker 1: is perfectly fine. I mean, it's not like you don't

568
00:30:18,560 --> 00:30:20,600
Speaker 1: have to have a In fact, you often we'll see

569
00:30:20,960 --> 00:30:24,400
Speaker 1: today things like patent pending where people are trying to

570
00:30:24,480 --> 00:30:29,560
Speaker 1: capitalize on an idea because patent applications and patent grants

571
00:30:29,600 --> 00:30:32,920
Speaker 1: can take a long time, especially today now that you

572
00:30:33,040 --> 00:30:38,280
Speaker 1: have uh, you know, an exponentially larger number of applications

573
00:30:38,320 --> 00:30:40,240
Speaker 1: coming into the patent office than you did way back

574
00:30:40,280 --> 00:30:44,160
Speaker 1: in the mid eighteen hundreds. Yeah, there were some other

575
00:30:44,160 --> 00:30:47,640
Speaker 1: people that were trying to improve on Marie and Johnson's

576
00:30:47,640 --> 00:30:50,280
Speaker 1: machine in the middle of eighteen forty nine. So that

577
00:30:50,320 --> 00:30:53,479
Speaker 1: same year they got their patent, there was a man

578
00:30:53,560 --> 00:30:56,600
Speaker 1: named Jotham s Conan, and he was issued a patent

579
00:30:57,600 --> 00:31:00,280
Speaker 1: based on a modification he made to their machine which

580
00:31:00,320 --> 00:31:01,960
Speaker 1: just kind of altered the way that the cloth was

581
00:31:02,000 --> 00:31:04,840
Speaker 1: held during the stitching. But his never really went anywhere.

582
00:31:04,880 --> 00:31:09,280
Speaker 1: He didn't manufacture, he didn't sell. But that same day

583
00:31:09,280 --> 00:31:13,000
Speaker 1: that he got his patent, another important person was getting

584
00:31:13,000 --> 00:31:16,479
Speaker 1: a patent, John Batch Elder. So yeah, this was the

585
00:31:16,560 --> 00:31:20,960
Speaker 1: continuous sewing mechanism and at an endless belt to feed

586
00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:26,200
Speaker 1: the cloth into the machine. Yeah, thank you, John, to

587
00:31:26,880 --> 00:31:28,960
Speaker 1: make sure that you don't have to put in all

588
00:31:28,960 --> 00:31:31,840
Speaker 1: that work yourself. Yeah, But the really important thing is

589
00:31:31,880 --> 00:31:34,800
Speaker 1: who Batch Older sold his patent too. And here we

590
00:31:34,880 --> 00:31:39,760
Speaker 1: come up to the first name in this podcast that

591
00:31:39,920 --> 00:31:46,760
Speaker 1: I recognize. I am Singer the Singer sewing machine. Everybody

592
00:31:46,800 --> 00:31:50,120
Speaker 1: knows that one. Well, I mean, you know, my my

593
00:31:50,120 --> 00:31:54,920
Speaker 1: my grandmother and my my mom both had Singer sewing machines.

594
00:31:54,960 --> 00:31:57,479
Speaker 1: In fact that there's the both of them still exist

595
00:31:57,560 --> 00:32:00,560
Speaker 1: and my parents. It's a it's like a little uh

596
00:32:00,760 --> 00:32:03,320
Speaker 1: table that's next to the front door of their house.

597
00:32:03,920 --> 00:32:07,120
Speaker 1: But it's an old Singer sewing machine that that's operated

598
00:32:07,120 --> 00:32:10,920
Speaker 1: by by pedal. Uh So, yeah, it's it's the one

599
00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:14,320
Speaker 1: of those names that I think most people associate it

600
00:32:14,320 --> 00:32:16,520
Speaker 1: with sewing. Pretty cool. Yeah, yeah, because I mean it's

601
00:32:16,520 --> 00:32:19,320
Speaker 1: still a name. So yep, they're still making you don't

602
00:32:19,320 --> 00:32:21,200
Speaker 1: hear about a lot of how machines these days. The

603
00:32:21,400 --> 00:32:23,640
Speaker 1: singers still going. We have a little bit more to

604
00:32:23,680 --> 00:32:26,320
Speaker 1: say about the Singer sewing machine and patents, but before

605
00:32:26,360 --> 00:32:28,760
Speaker 1: we get to that, let's take another quick break to

606
00:32:28,880 --> 00:32:39,080
Speaker 1: thank our sponsor. We finally reached the point now where

607
00:32:39,120 --> 00:32:42,000
Speaker 1: things have come to ahead. We've got the the snippy

608
00:32:42,040 --> 00:32:45,880
Speaker 1: little patent applications out of the way. Now it's time

609
00:32:45,920 --> 00:32:50,800
Speaker 1: to really get down to fisticuffs legally speaking. And uh

610
00:32:51,200 --> 00:32:55,240
Speaker 1: it's the eighteen fifties where we get that first enormous

611
00:32:55,440 --> 00:32:57,800
Speaker 1: patent war. And it all has to do with the

612
00:32:57,800 --> 00:33:01,440
Speaker 1: fact that these different little elements that have been improved

613
00:33:01,520 --> 00:33:03,960
Speaker 1: upon over time, there were a lot of arguments about

614
00:33:04,480 --> 00:33:09,320
Speaker 1: who actually had ownership of those ideas and in what implementations,

615
00:33:09,440 --> 00:33:13,440
Speaker 1: and who was owed money by whom, and it got ugly,

616
00:33:13,840 --> 00:33:17,800
Speaker 1: really really ugly. So there was a a man by

617
00:33:17,800 --> 00:33:20,240
Speaker 1: the name of Allan B. Wilson, and he in eighteen

618
00:33:20,280 --> 00:33:23,960
Speaker 1: fifty was working on this lockstitch machine very similar to

619
00:33:24,000 --> 00:33:27,560
Speaker 1: the modern machine, and his mechanism could also go forward

620
00:33:27,600 --> 00:33:30,840
Speaker 1: and backwards, which we had not encountered before. Uh, And

621
00:33:30,960 --> 00:33:33,240
Speaker 1: he applied for his patent. He had made a second

622
00:33:33,240 --> 00:33:36,440
Speaker 1: prototype model and the people that owned the brad Shop

623
00:33:36,480 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 1: patent from eight got wind of this, and we're like,

624
00:33:39,360 --> 00:33:42,720
Speaker 1: hold on a minute. For four Uh, we owned some

625
00:33:42,800 --> 00:33:45,360
Speaker 1: of the concepts you're using. The double pointed shuttle that

626
00:33:45,400 --> 00:33:47,800
Speaker 1: made up a part of his machine was something that

627
00:33:47,840 --> 00:33:51,640
Speaker 1: was part of their patent, uh, they claimed, And that

628
00:33:51,720 --> 00:33:55,360
Speaker 1: claim was not accurate. It was complete bunk. So however,

629
00:33:55,960 --> 00:33:59,160
Speaker 1: they think, well, let's throw a wrench into this one. However,

630
00:33:59,320 --> 00:34:01,600
Speaker 1: they had all ers and Wilson didn't, so he could

631
00:34:01,640 --> 00:34:05,600
Speaker 1: not fight them. So we get down to using the

632
00:34:05,680 --> 00:34:09,160
Speaker 1: old idea of well, if if we can't, if we

633
00:34:09,239 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 1: can't suppress this idea, one way, we can just kind

634
00:34:12,480 --> 00:34:14,320
Speaker 1: of run them out because we've got we've got a

635
00:34:14,400 --> 00:34:19,880
Speaker 1: larger reserve of cash. Yes, so uh, he had to

636
00:34:19,920 --> 00:34:22,280
Speaker 1: give up half of his claim to a p Kline

637
00:34:22,360 --> 00:34:25,560
Speaker 1: and Edward Lee, who at that point held the Bradshaw patent,

638
00:34:26,239 --> 00:34:29,520
Speaker 1: and that was in late eighteen fifty in November, and

639
00:34:29,560 --> 00:34:31,680
Speaker 1: then after a little while he just sold them the

640
00:34:31,680 --> 00:34:33,799
Speaker 1: rest of his interest. He didn't want to mess with

641
00:34:33,800 --> 00:34:36,759
Speaker 1: it anymore. He retained very limited rights. That's a very

642
00:34:36,760 --> 00:34:39,879
Speaker 1: sad story there where he essentially he was beaten down. Yeah,

643
00:34:39,920 --> 00:34:42,640
Speaker 1: he really had the goods in terms of his invention

644
00:34:43,120 --> 00:34:46,120
Speaker 1: to have been the singer of this story in terms

645
00:34:46,120 --> 00:34:48,719
Speaker 1: of name recognition, but because he just didn't have the

646
00:34:48,719 --> 00:34:51,000
Speaker 1: means to fight anybody that made a claim against him

647
00:34:51,560 --> 00:34:54,440
Speaker 1: and vanished into history and to resulted to the wound.

648
00:34:55,040 --> 00:34:59,280
Speaker 1: He would use his name in official advertisements. Yeah, people

649
00:34:59,360 --> 00:35:03,920
Speaker 1: recognize that he had invented something really pretty exciting because

650
00:35:03,960 --> 00:35:06,359
Speaker 1: it could do these things that previous machines couldn't, And

651
00:35:06,400 --> 00:35:09,920
Speaker 1: so their advertisements went A B. Wilson's sewing machine, the

652
00:35:10,000 --> 00:35:13,360
Speaker 1: best and only practical sewing machine, not larger than a

653
00:35:13,440 --> 00:35:17,000
Speaker 1: ladies workbox, for the trifling sum of thirty five dollars.

654
00:35:17,040 --> 00:35:20,560
Speaker 1: So not only does he not get the benefit of

655
00:35:20,640 --> 00:35:24,239
Speaker 1: actually owning this device that he invented, he then has

656
00:35:24,280 --> 00:35:27,560
Speaker 1: the indignity of having his name used in the advertising

657
00:35:27,840 --> 00:35:30,120
Speaker 1: while this other company makes money off of it. Yeah,

658
00:35:30,160 --> 00:35:33,200
Speaker 1: he really did get shafted. So meanwhile, we've got to

659
00:35:33,280 --> 00:35:37,759
Speaker 1: lie as how who He's no dummy, No, he's witnessing

660
00:35:37,760 --> 00:35:41,400
Speaker 1: this and realizing some stuff is going down. Maybe I

661
00:35:41,440 --> 00:35:45,200
Speaker 1: need to kind of circle my little my proverbial wagons here.

662
00:35:45,880 --> 00:35:48,359
Speaker 1: So he decides that he's going to protect the rights

663
00:35:48,360 --> 00:35:52,800
Speaker 1: to royalties from his inventions. Uh, and anything that could

664
00:35:52,840 --> 00:35:57,319
Speaker 1: trace elements of the products being sold back to one

665
00:35:57,360 --> 00:36:00,560
Speaker 1: of his patents, right, Yeah, and from the Branshaw model on.

666
00:36:00,920 --> 00:36:04,239
Speaker 1: They really were working on How's machine and kind of

667
00:36:04,280 --> 00:36:08,160
Speaker 1: making twee tweaks to that. Uh. And then he really

668
00:36:08,160 --> 00:36:11,160
Speaker 1: got angry because he saw Isaac Singer's one of Isaac

669
00:36:11,239 --> 00:36:17,320
Speaker 1: Singer's sons, demonstrating their sewing machine. Yeah, and uh he said, huh,

670
00:36:17,640 --> 00:36:21,320
Speaker 1: some of these elements look awfully familiar. So of course

671
00:36:21,560 --> 00:36:24,440
Speaker 1: he ends up doing the responsible thing, you know. He

672
00:36:24,480 --> 00:36:28,840
Speaker 1: contacts Singer and says, um, actually, I own the patent

673
00:36:28,960 --> 00:36:32,280
Speaker 1: for this this machinery, this particular piece that you're using,

674
00:36:32,400 --> 00:36:36,360
Speaker 1: and so by law, um I should really receive a

675
00:36:36,440 --> 00:36:40,080
Speaker 1: royalty payment because you're you're using it in your device

676
00:36:40,600 --> 00:36:45,560
Speaker 1: and otherwise not not compensating me for it, and so um,

677
00:36:45,680 --> 00:36:47,960
Speaker 1: I'd really like that two thousand dollars the oh Me

678
00:36:48,400 --> 00:36:53,279
Speaker 1: and Singer, being the very level headed professional businessman, Uh

679
00:36:53,719 --> 00:36:59,360
Speaker 1: decided to um physically threaten How Yeah he Uh. Singer

680
00:36:59,440 --> 00:37:01,520
Speaker 1: was known for a a really bad temper. He did

681
00:37:01,560 --> 00:37:04,640
Speaker 1: some really seedy things just in business outside of this,

682
00:37:05,440 --> 00:37:07,120
Speaker 1: and when it came to this, there was one incident

683
00:37:07,120 --> 00:37:10,440
Speaker 1: where he allegedly threatened and nearly threw How down the

684
00:37:10,480 --> 00:37:14,080
Speaker 1: steps outside his office. Like there were fisticuffs. It wasn't

685
00:37:14,120 --> 00:37:18,600
Speaker 1: just yelling and through lawyers, they were physically I get

686
00:37:18,600 --> 00:37:22,080
Speaker 1: the feeling that Singer is very much like the character

687
00:37:23,040 --> 00:37:25,640
Speaker 1: from from Parts of the Caribbean who just says, you know,

688
00:37:25,719 --> 00:37:31,160
Speaker 1: they're more like Guideline. It's he's he's not not really

689
00:37:31,200 --> 00:37:35,240
Speaker 1: one to necessarily be too concerned with the actual rules

690
00:37:35,239 --> 00:37:38,040
Speaker 1: of law. You know, that actor that plays Jackmi Gibb

691
00:37:38,080 --> 00:37:41,640
Speaker 1: would make a great Isaac Singer. He would. But How

692
00:37:41,880 --> 00:37:44,279
Speaker 1: did a super smart thing. This is where we really

693
00:37:44,320 --> 00:37:48,439
Speaker 1: realized that this man was just really smart and very

694
00:37:48,440 --> 00:37:52,480
Speaker 1: widely so. He, like some of these previous sad stories,

695
00:37:52,520 --> 00:37:55,160
Speaker 1: really didn't have a lot of money to get into

696
00:37:55,160 --> 00:37:58,560
Speaker 1: a lot of legal battles, but he figures out a

697
00:37:58,600 --> 00:38:01,480
Speaker 1: way to finance some litigation. He sells half of his

698
00:38:01,560 --> 00:38:04,240
Speaker 1: interest in his patent to a man named George Bliss,

699
00:38:04,640 --> 00:38:09,040
Speaker 1: and Bliss manufactured machines. He built them as being House patent,

700
00:38:09,160 --> 00:38:12,360
Speaker 1: even though they were pretty different from House initial design.

701
00:38:12,800 --> 00:38:14,839
Speaker 1: But the money that how made off of this partnership

702
00:38:15,160 --> 00:38:17,920
Speaker 1: was basically put into his litigation machine and he just

703
00:38:17,920 --> 00:38:20,880
Speaker 1: started fighting people. Oh got you So, So what he

704
00:38:20,920 --> 00:38:22,560
Speaker 1: was doing was he had made this partnership. He was

705
00:38:22,600 --> 00:38:25,720
Speaker 1: making money off the partnership. Bliss is making money because

706
00:38:25,719 --> 00:38:28,480
Speaker 1: of Howe's name. How is making money because of the

707
00:38:28,480 --> 00:38:31,720
Speaker 1: partnership with Bliss. He ends up spending that money directly

708
00:38:31,800 --> 00:38:35,879
Speaker 1: on lawyers to attack people who are actually infringing upon

709
00:38:35,920 --> 00:38:39,080
Speaker 1: his patents. Yeah, he went after Singer with great vigor,

710
00:38:39,160 --> 00:38:41,160
Speaker 1: But there were a lot of other people that were

711
00:38:41,200 --> 00:38:44,840
Speaker 1: also in this mix. Uh, two of them Laroux and Blodgett.

712
00:38:44,880 --> 00:38:47,080
Speaker 1: That we're a pair, that we're making a firm, that

713
00:38:47,120 --> 00:38:51,720
Speaker 1: we're making machines that he thought infringed. There was actually

714
00:38:51,719 --> 00:38:54,480
Speaker 1: a judgment in that case in House Favor that was

715
00:38:54,520 --> 00:38:57,160
Speaker 1: the first one to be settled, and once it it

716
00:38:57,320 --> 00:38:59,280
Speaker 1: was like the first of the dominoes, because then everybody

717
00:38:59,280 --> 00:39:00,879
Speaker 1: else kind of panic. He went, oh, wow, he really

718
00:39:00,880 --> 00:39:03,120
Speaker 1: has a case. Right, when you've got a precedent set

719
00:39:03,200 --> 00:39:06,440
Speaker 1: like that, then the the it becomes clear that's going

720
00:39:06,480 --> 00:39:09,480
Speaker 1: to get harder and harder to win a case. Uh.

721
00:39:09,520 --> 00:39:12,000
Speaker 1: You know when a defense against such a claim. If

722
00:39:12,000 --> 00:39:14,120
Speaker 1: a claim has already been held up in court in

723
00:39:14,200 --> 00:39:16,840
Speaker 1: one instance, then the fear is that it will be

724
00:39:16,920 --> 00:39:19,760
Speaker 1: the same in future ones. And it's cheaper to settle

725
00:39:20,400 --> 00:39:23,040
Speaker 1: it is to to go through the process and then

726
00:39:23,080 --> 00:39:26,720
Speaker 1: maybe have to be forced to hand over a larger

727
00:39:26,800 --> 00:39:30,240
Speaker 1: reward in a court decision. Yeah, and how is basically

728
00:39:30,280 --> 00:39:33,680
Speaker 1: happy to any settlements be like, okay, let's set up

729
00:39:33,719 --> 00:39:36,319
Speaker 1: a license. Like he was willing to deal with them.

730
00:39:36,600 --> 00:39:38,440
Speaker 1: It wasn't like he wanted to prevent other people from

731
00:39:38,440 --> 00:39:42,640
Speaker 1: making their machine. This is very different from today when

732
00:39:42,640 --> 00:39:44,840
Speaker 1: we were talking about similarities. But today we got a

733
00:39:44,880 --> 00:39:47,279
Speaker 1: lot of what we call them patentrols. These are the

734
00:39:47,320 --> 00:39:50,399
Speaker 1: folks who will get a patent and then either they

735
00:39:50,400 --> 00:39:52,760
Speaker 1: don't make anything on their own, or they make something

736
00:39:52,840 --> 00:39:55,239
Speaker 1: very very tiny, and then they just kind of sit

737
00:39:55,280 --> 00:39:57,759
Speaker 1: around and wait for folks to infringe upon them. They

738
00:39:57,840 --> 00:40:02,279
Speaker 1: threatened litigation in hopes of a sttlement um. But but

739
00:40:02,520 --> 00:40:05,000
Speaker 1: what a lot of people have said about the recent

740
00:40:05,480 --> 00:40:09,160
Speaker 1: patent wars is that the patent system needs to create

741
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:14,360
Speaker 1: an incentive for patent holders to license their ideas for royalties,

742
00:40:14,360 --> 00:40:17,440
Speaker 1: which is exactly what hal was doing back in this day. Yeah,

743
00:40:17,600 --> 00:40:19,600
Speaker 1: I mean he really saw the benefit of like, hey,

744
00:40:19,640 --> 00:40:21,120
Speaker 1: it would be a pain, and it took us for

745
00:40:21,160 --> 00:40:23,200
Speaker 1: me to set up my own manufacturing plant and be

746
00:40:23,560 --> 00:40:25,680
Speaker 1: churning these out. But all these people are already set up.

747
00:40:25,719 --> 00:40:29,239
Speaker 1: I can just cut deals with them. Everybody wins. Yeah,

748
00:40:29,360 --> 00:40:31,799
Speaker 1: except not so much. No, No, I got it got

749
00:40:31,880 --> 00:40:36,560
Speaker 1: ugly again. Apparently Singer was not done. Yeah, he didn't settle,

750
00:40:37,000 --> 00:40:40,239
Speaker 1: and so that case dragged on. Yeah, and it got

751
00:40:40,680 --> 00:40:44,080
Speaker 1: ugly in public. To write, You've got this great little

752
00:40:44,120 --> 00:40:48,320
Speaker 1: story about to to advertisements that ran on the same

753
00:40:48,400 --> 00:40:51,200
Speaker 1: page of the New York Daily Tribune that tell very

754
00:40:51,200 --> 00:40:56,160
Speaker 1: different stories. Yeah, the first one reads the sewing machine.

755
00:40:56,440 --> 00:40:59,200
Speaker 1: It has been recently decided by the United States Court

756
00:40:59,239 --> 00:41:02,880
Speaker 1: that Alias had Junior of number three zero five Broadway

757
00:41:03,000 --> 00:41:06,160
Speaker 1: was the originator of the sewing machine now extensively used.

758
00:41:06,560 --> 00:41:08,640
Speaker 1: Call it his office and see forty of them in

759
00:41:08,760 --> 00:41:12,440
Speaker 1: constant use upon cloth, whether, etcetera. And judge for yourselves

760
00:41:12,440 --> 00:41:15,839
Speaker 1: as to their practicality. Also see a certified copy from

761
00:41:15,880 --> 00:41:18,280
Speaker 1: the records of the United States Court of the injunction

762
00:41:18,400 --> 00:41:23,160
Speaker 1: against Singers machine so called, which is conclusive. You that

763
00:41:23,239 --> 00:41:25,799
Speaker 1: want sewing machines be cautious how you purchase them of

764
00:41:25,840 --> 00:41:29,120
Speaker 1: others than him or those licensed under him, else the

765
00:41:29,200 --> 00:41:32,239
Speaker 1: law will compel you to pay twice over. Meanwhile, we

766
00:41:32,360 --> 00:41:38,600
Speaker 1: have the other advertisement sewing machines. For the last two years,

767
00:41:38,600 --> 00:41:42,200
Speaker 1: Elias how Junior of Massachusetts, has been threatening suits and

768
00:41:42,239 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 1: injunctions against all the world who make use or sells

769
00:41:46,040 --> 00:41:50,520
Speaker 1: sewing machines. We have sold many machines, are selling them rapidly,

770
00:41:50,840 --> 00:41:53,920
Speaker 1: and have good right to sell them. The public do

771
00:41:54,000 --> 00:41:57,760
Speaker 1: not acknowledge Mr Howe's pretensions, and for the best reasons.

772
00:41:57,920 --> 00:42:01,399
Speaker 1: One machines made a core into house patent are of

773
00:42:01,440 --> 00:42:05,000
Speaker 1: no practical use. He tried several years without being able

774
00:42:05,040 --> 00:42:09,399
Speaker 1: to introduce one too. It is notorious, especially in New York,

775
00:42:09,680 --> 00:42:12,760
Speaker 1: that how was not the original inventor of the machine

776
00:42:12,800 --> 00:42:15,840
Speaker 1: combining the needle and shuttle, and that his claim to

777
00:42:15,960 --> 00:42:20,719
Speaker 1: that is not valid. Finally, we make and sell the

778
00:42:20,760 --> 00:42:27,759
Speaker 1: best sewing machines. So yeah, there's there's some vitriolic I

779
00:42:27,800 --> 00:42:32,239
Speaker 1: love how It's it's like a sewing machine telenovela. There's

780
00:42:32,239 --> 00:42:34,040
Speaker 1: a lot of soap opera going on here. And to

781
00:42:34,120 --> 00:42:37,760
Speaker 1: make it even more soap opera ish, How went after

782
00:42:37,840 --> 00:42:40,480
Speaker 1: Singer for libel. But he also went after the New

783
00:42:40,560 --> 00:42:43,640
Speaker 1: York Daily Tribune for printing his advertisement in the first place.

784
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:47,440
Speaker 1: So we now have How going after Singer both for

785
00:42:47,520 --> 00:42:51,440
Speaker 1: patent infringement and for libel. Yeah, fantastic, just to make

786
00:42:51,440 --> 00:42:55,560
Speaker 1: their relationship that much more delightful and huggy. So at

787
00:42:55,560 --> 00:42:59,000
Speaker 1: this point Singer, Singer wakes up and just says, you know,

788
00:42:59,400 --> 00:43:01,640
Speaker 1: you know you were right. I was wrong. I'm I'm

789
00:43:01,640 --> 00:43:03,799
Speaker 1: gonna be the bigger man walk away right, not even

790
00:43:03,840 --> 00:43:07,160
Speaker 1: a little. He instead just kind of goes into a

791
00:43:07,280 --> 00:43:11,080
Speaker 1: rage suitable to be played only by Daniel day Lewis. Besides,

792
00:43:11,160 --> 00:43:17,120
Speaker 1: he's going to destroy house Bill totally. He decides he

793
00:43:17,239 --> 00:43:21,040
Speaker 1: is going to seek out every scrap of evidence on earth.

794
00:43:21,120 --> 00:43:24,800
Speaker 1: He even sought out sources in Europe and China to

795
00:43:25,080 --> 00:43:30,160
Speaker 1: prove that house design was not original. Uh. And the

796
00:43:30,280 --> 00:43:34,000
Speaker 1: key here is that the wording in House patent was

797
00:43:34,040 --> 00:43:38,200
Speaker 1: really his protection because he had patented the combination of

798
00:43:38,239 --> 00:43:40,400
Speaker 1: the shuttle and the one I and the I pointed

799
00:43:40,440 --> 00:43:43,520
Speaker 1: needle and how they would work together. But he never

800
00:43:43,600 --> 00:43:46,839
Speaker 1: claimed to have invented either of those elements, and so

801
00:43:46,960 --> 00:43:50,120
Speaker 1: his patent remained accurate and correct and not infringing on

802
00:43:50,160 --> 00:43:52,640
Speaker 1: anyone else because he didn't say I invented the needle

803
00:43:53,239 --> 00:43:55,560
Speaker 1: at the shuttle. He said I invented this combination of

804
00:43:55,600 --> 00:43:58,520
Speaker 1: these two elements that work in this particular way. Correct,

805
00:43:58,600 --> 00:44:03,279
Speaker 1: and that is completely valid patent law. So again, if

806
00:44:03,320 --> 00:44:05,920
Speaker 1: you come up with a new way to use existing

807
00:44:05,960 --> 00:44:10,080
Speaker 1: technology that you you can claim as an improvement over others,

808
00:44:10,280 --> 00:44:13,040
Speaker 1: there's nothing stopping you from getting a patent on that. Yeah,

809
00:44:13,200 --> 00:44:15,600
Speaker 1: you can patent an interaction of things. They don't have

810
00:44:15,680 --> 00:44:20,399
Speaker 1: to be physical things necessarily. However, if you remember back

811
00:44:20,440 --> 00:44:22,879
Speaker 1: when we talked about Walter Hunt, who was the guy

812
00:44:22,920 --> 00:44:25,640
Speaker 1: who invented a pretty workable sewing machine but then kind

813
00:44:25,640 --> 00:44:28,200
Speaker 1: of sold it off and abandoned it, Yeah, he never

814
00:44:28,239 --> 00:44:32,600
Speaker 1: he never patented his particular idea. Singer found him, of course,

815
00:44:32,680 --> 00:44:34,800
Speaker 1: because he thought that was his best shot at bringing

816
00:44:34,800 --> 00:44:36,879
Speaker 1: HOW down and showing that HOW is not in fact,

817
00:44:36,920 --> 00:44:40,439
Speaker 1: the first person to invent a working sewing machine, so

818
00:44:41,400 --> 00:44:46,319
Speaker 1: he I guess he just wanted to retroactively magically get

819
00:44:45,960 --> 00:44:50,359
Speaker 1: a precursor patent that couldn't have existed because William Hunt

820
00:44:50,400 --> 00:44:53,399
Speaker 1: never patented his detention. That is exactly what he tried

821
00:44:53,440 --> 00:44:57,560
Speaker 1: to do. So this this reminds me. I mean, they're

822
00:44:57,880 --> 00:45:01,319
Speaker 1: their entire books written about some of the more ridiculous

823
00:45:01,360 --> 00:45:03,760
Speaker 1: things that have happened in patent law around the world,

824
00:45:03,880 --> 00:45:07,040
Speaker 1: but particularly in the United States. So another good example

825
00:45:07,200 --> 00:45:11,799
Speaker 1: of some shenanigans that went on with patents involves Tesla

826
00:45:11,840 --> 00:45:15,960
Speaker 1: and Radio. Because Tesla was awarded the patent the United

827
00:45:16,000 --> 00:45:20,400
Speaker 1: States uh the same year that Marconi actually filed for

828
00:45:20,520 --> 00:45:22,960
Speaker 1: a patent. In fact, he received the patent a month

829
00:45:23,040 --> 00:45:25,680
Speaker 1: before or two months before Marconi had filed for a

830
00:45:25,719 --> 00:45:29,399
Speaker 1: patent in the US, and then famously, several years later

831
00:45:29,600 --> 00:45:33,840
Speaker 1: the Patent Office awarded they went back on their decision,

832
00:45:34,040 --> 00:45:37,560
Speaker 1: took the patent away from Tesla and awarded it to Marconi.

833
00:45:38,080 --> 00:45:42,520
Speaker 1: So even though that happens later, you know this this

834
00:45:42,840 --> 00:45:46,120
Speaker 1: the events we're talking about here are earlier in the timeline.

835
00:45:47,080 --> 00:45:49,440
Speaker 1: It's not unusual for us to see these kind of

836
00:45:49,480 --> 00:45:54,080
Speaker 1: crazy political dealings. Yeah, and again remembered, Uh, you know,

837
00:45:54,520 --> 00:45:56,920
Speaker 1: this wasn't a time when everything was duplicated and there

838
00:45:57,000 --> 00:45:59,799
Speaker 1: was a trail of what had happened, when it would

839
00:45:59,800 --> 00:46:02,480
Speaker 1: be easy to fudge things. So it's it's reasonable that

840
00:46:02,600 --> 00:46:04,680
Speaker 1: Singer could think that he was going to finagle something

841
00:46:04,680 --> 00:46:07,680
Speaker 1: out of this. So what what happens due to this

842
00:46:07,680 --> 00:46:12,719
Speaker 1: this claim? Well, first Singer hires an engineer, William Whiting, uh,

843
00:46:12,960 --> 00:46:16,640
Speaker 1: to basically help resurrect Hunts designs. He's gonna go back

844
00:46:16,640 --> 00:46:19,440
Speaker 1: to those original blueprints and schematics and he's going to

845
00:46:19,520 --> 00:46:22,080
Speaker 1: build it to prove that this one works and it's great.

846
00:46:22,640 --> 00:46:30,239
Speaker 1: And how you got nothing? Uh? And uh. The Scientific

847
00:46:30,280 --> 00:46:33,359
Speaker 1: American at the time, as this was all bubbling up,

848
00:46:33,360 --> 00:46:39,719
Speaker 1: actually published a pretty um scathing article about Hunt asserting

849
00:46:39,800 --> 00:46:41,480
Speaker 1: because he was like, oh yeah, I did him at

850
00:46:41,520 --> 00:46:43,319
Speaker 1: the sewing machine. Now that he sees that there's money

851
00:46:43,360 --> 00:46:45,840
Speaker 1: in it and this is a litigious thing. They basically

852
00:46:45,880 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 1: said that his claims were rusty, He didn't he had

853
00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:51,120
Speaker 1: no hat in this game. What was he trying to do?

854
00:46:51,600 --> 00:46:54,680
Speaker 1: Legal basis? Really, but there was a trial at the

855
00:46:54,680 --> 00:46:58,839
Speaker 1: Patent Office. There were hundreds of pages of testimony. I mean,

856
00:46:58,880 --> 00:47:01,440
Speaker 1: it went on forever ing or dragged everybody in that

857
00:47:01,480 --> 00:47:04,000
Speaker 1: he could think of that had ever touched anything that

858
00:47:04,120 --> 00:47:08,960
Speaker 1: vaguely resembled the sewing machine. UM Patent Commissioner Charles Mason

859
00:47:09,000 --> 00:47:13,120
Speaker 1: the ruled in favor of Elias Howe on eighteen fifty four,

860
00:47:13,520 --> 00:47:16,080
Speaker 1: and the big part of Hunt's loss, even though he

861
00:47:16,120 --> 00:47:18,319
Speaker 1: really did have a pretty good working machine, was that

862
00:47:18,360 --> 00:47:20,880
Speaker 1: he didn't do anything to patent it or protected eighteen

863
00:47:20,960 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 1: years prior. So, Uh, the Patent office can't can't rule

864
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:29,640
Speaker 1: in favor of someone who hasn't actually gone through the process. Yeah, yeah,

865
00:47:29,640 --> 00:47:31,480
Speaker 1: the commissioner is equit. Are you trying to do? You

866
00:47:31,560 --> 00:47:34,400
Speaker 1: didn't You don't have these rights. Hunt did try to

867
00:47:34,440 --> 00:47:37,360
Speaker 1: appeal to the Circuit Court of the District of Columbia,

868
00:47:37,400 --> 00:47:40,680
Speaker 1: but that did not go so well either. Mason's ruling

869
00:47:40,760 --> 00:47:48,840
Speaker 1: was upheld. So then how emboldened by this victory, decides

870
00:47:48,880 --> 00:47:51,960
Speaker 1: to start going after other people that he has has

871
00:47:51,960 --> 00:47:55,400
Speaker 1: perceived as infringing against his patents. Yep, everybody that was

872
00:47:55,400 --> 00:47:58,920
Speaker 1: selling a singer machine he went after. Wow, that was

873
00:47:58,920 --> 00:48:02,800
Speaker 1: a lot of people, and he asked for preliminary injunctions

874
00:48:02,840 --> 00:48:04,880
Speaker 1: against all of them to shut down sales while they

875
00:48:04,880 --> 00:48:09,200
Speaker 1: went through their court cases. So he goes through this process,

876
00:48:09,920 --> 00:48:14,279
Speaker 1: bringing it all the way to courts when necessary. Um,

877
00:48:14,440 --> 00:48:19,719
Speaker 1: and the they what the poor singer at this point,

878
00:48:19,719 --> 00:48:21,719
Speaker 1: not not really poor singer because he's kind of a jerk,

879
00:48:22,080 --> 00:48:24,800
Speaker 1: but but you've got you've got how going after the

880
00:48:24,840 --> 00:48:28,040
Speaker 1: people who are selling singer sewing machines, are incorporating them.

881
00:48:28,200 --> 00:48:30,760
Speaker 1: Then what they're doing instead, you know, they get attacked

882
00:48:30,760 --> 00:48:33,719
Speaker 1: by how they turned around. They attack singers saying, you

883
00:48:33,840 --> 00:48:35,960
Speaker 1: got us into this. Yeah, you had no right to

884
00:48:36,000 --> 00:48:38,120
Speaker 1: sell us the licenses that you sold us because you

885
00:48:38,120 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: didn't have a right to it. You didn't own the

886
00:48:40,840 --> 00:48:43,560
Speaker 1: technology that you were licensing to us, and and that's

887
00:48:43,600 --> 00:48:48,640
Speaker 1: why we're in trouble. So it's so liticious. By eighteen

888
00:48:48,680 --> 00:48:51,239
Speaker 1: fifty four, keep in mind this started in the in

889
00:48:51,520 --> 00:48:54,839
Speaker 1: the eighteen fifty By eighteen fifty four, Singer and how

890
00:48:55,080 --> 00:48:59,400
Speaker 1: settle their lawsuit and it's announced in Scientific American. This

891
00:48:59,480 --> 00:49:03,200
Speaker 1: is a big Yeah, this is not tiny news. This

892
00:49:03,280 --> 00:49:05,960
Speaker 1: is like this is just like when you go on

893
00:49:06,080 --> 00:49:08,360
Speaker 1: to Google News and you see like Samsung and Apple

894
00:49:08,440 --> 00:49:11,600
Speaker 1: settle lawsuits. That's equivalent. Yeah, it's kind of like it

895
00:49:11,600 --> 00:49:15,560
Speaker 1: reminds me of when those first like headlines were happening

896
00:49:15,600 --> 00:49:18,799
Speaker 1: about no Steve Jobs and Bill Gates actually like each other.

897
00:49:18,880 --> 00:49:21,480
Speaker 1: It's fine, it's like that level of wait, what we

898
00:49:21,520 --> 00:49:25,400
Speaker 1: didn't think that's how this worked, except there was very

899
00:49:25,440 --> 00:49:29,120
Speaker 1: little pushing down of stairs in any of them. Right, well,

900
00:49:29,600 --> 00:49:32,240
Speaker 1: what what's really cool about this? Okay, so this didn't

901
00:49:32,400 --> 00:49:36,279
Speaker 1: end all litigation. There was still some continuing on. But

902
00:49:36,440 --> 00:49:38,920
Speaker 1: by eighteen fifties six, we get the president of Grover

903
00:49:39,000 --> 00:49:41,600
Speaker 1: and Baker, which was one of the companies involved in

904
00:49:41,600 --> 00:49:45,480
Speaker 1: the suits, that were, uh, that we're evolving, Elias How,

905
00:49:45,920 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 1: I feel like we should back up because we skipped that.

906
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:52,040
Speaker 1: People tried to then sue How for improving Uh yeah,

907
00:49:52,080 --> 00:49:56,080
Speaker 1: so How basically at this point was the you know,

908
00:49:56,160 --> 00:49:59,160
Speaker 1: the czar of the sewing machine in industry. He owned

909
00:49:59,200 --> 00:50:01,960
Speaker 1: the patent to the biggest chunk of it and was

910
00:50:02,040 --> 00:50:04,160
Speaker 1: licensing those out, and he thought, well, you know, I

911
00:50:04,160 --> 00:50:07,239
Speaker 1: could really tweak that original design as well. But every

912
00:50:07,239 --> 00:50:09,560
Speaker 1: tweak he made other people claim they had already made.

913
00:50:09,600 --> 00:50:12,600
Speaker 1: So then he was getting sued by people for patent

914
00:50:12,640 --> 00:50:16,439
Speaker 1: infringement for improving on his original design. Okay, so now's

915
00:50:16,440 --> 00:50:21,200
Speaker 1: the litigation festival Basically, now you've got people saying, all right, well,

916
00:50:21,239 --> 00:50:25,360
Speaker 1: these improvements you're making, we've already made and we've already patented.

917
00:50:25,480 --> 00:50:28,680
Speaker 1: So it's become a huge mess. By eighteen fifty six,

918
00:50:28,719 --> 00:50:30,400
Speaker 1: you get the president of Grover and Baker, which was

919
00:50:30,480 --> 00:50:33,400
Speaker 1: one of the companies that was involved in these cases

920
00:50:33,440 --> 00:50:37,680
Speaker 1: against how about these improvements to the original designs and

921
00:50:38,160 --> 00:50:43,279
Speaker 1: comes up with a concept called the combination, which, by

922
00:50:43,320 --> 00:50:46,280
Speaker 1: the way, these days we would call this a patent pool. Yeah,

923
00:50:46,680 --> 00:50:48,760
Speaker 1: and a patent pools essentially when you get a whole

924
00:50:48,800 --> 00:50:52,000
Speaker 1: bunch of different stakeholders who all own different patents that

925
00:50:52,080 --> 00:50:56,040
Speaker 1: are involved in the same general technology to essentially come

926
00:50:56,040 --> 00:50:59,000
Speaker 1: to an agreement saying, all right, we're gonna pull all

927
00:50:59,000 --> 00:51:01,359
Speaker 1: these patents together, and as long as we are all

928
00:51:01,400 --> 00:51:03,840
Speaker 1: officially part of this group and we all agree to

929
00:51:03,960 --> 00:51:06,600
Speaker 1: operate by these rules, we're not going to sue the

930
00:51:06,640 --> 00:51:09,880
Speaker 1: pants off each other whenever we make an improvement to

931
00:51:09,920 --> 00:51:13,680
Speaker 1: that technology or incorporate that technology into our products. Yes,

932
00:51:14,040 --> 00:51:17,960
Speaker 1: make suring that everyone's getting the royalties that they deserve. Exactly. So.

933
00:51:18,520 --> 00:51:21,280
Speaker 1: The president of Grover and Baker was Orlando B. Potter,

934
00:51:21,440 --> 00:51:23,799
Speaker 1: and he, you know, I feel like He's a person

935
00:51:23,880 --> 00:51:27,120
Speaker 1: that's not very well known historically, but he really deserves

936
00:51:27,160 --> 00:51:29,200
Speaker 1: a lot of kudos because he was really the first

937
00:51:29,239 --> 00:51:33,080
Speaker 1: person to go, hey, you guys, we're only hurting ourselves.

938
00:51:33,080 --> 00:51:36,560
Speaker 1: We're kind of being idiots. And he really established this

939
00:51:36,640 --> 00:51:39,760
Speaker 1: concept of what is now a patent pool. Uh. So

940
00:51:40,040 --> 00:51:42,960
Speaker 1: he was like, let's stop, you know, holding up everybody's production.

941
00:51:43,040 --> 00:51:46,000
Speaker 1: Let's stop throwing our money at lawyers. We don't need that.

942
00:51:46,080 --> 00:51:50,160
Speaker 1: We can work this out. Uh. And so he got

943
00:51:50,160 --> 00:51:52,480
Speaker 1: them all to join their forces. They pulled their patents,

944
00:51:52,520 --> 00:51:56,480
Speaker 1: they made one unified combination patent for sewing machines. How

945
00:51:56,600 --> 00:51:59,399
Speaker 1: initially was not on board with this. Well, now, when

946
00:51:59,440 --> 00:52:02,319
Speaker 1: you own a huge chunk of the landscape, than you

947
00:52:02,360 --> 00:52:04,239
Speaker 1: feel like you have the most to lose in that

948
00:52:04,320 --> 00:52:07,920
Speaker 1: kind of agreement. He definitely felt that way, but eventually

949
00:52:08,000 --> 00:52:11,520
Speaker 1: he did agree to it. He had made some pretty

950
00:52:11,560 --> 00:52:15,480
Speaker 1: heavy stipulations and the other parties agreed. Basically, he was

951
00:52:15,520 --> 00:52:17,960
Speaker 1: going to get a five dollar royalty on every sewing

952
00:52:17,960 --> 00:52:20,680
Speaker 1: machine that was sold in the US, and for every

953
00:52:20,680 --> 00:52:23,160
Speaker 1: sewing machine that was exported he would get a dollar. Now,

954
00:52:23,160 --> 00:52:25,359
Speaker 1: I remember this is in eighteen fifty six, so these

955
00:52:25,360 --> 00:52:28,560
Speaker 1: are not paltry sums. This is this is a significant money.

956
00:52:28,800 --> 00:52:32,160
Speaker 1: So in the next eleven years between eighteen fifty six

957
00:52:32,520 --> 00:52:35,560
Speaker 1: in eighteen sixty seven, when How's Patton expired, he made

958
00:52:35,560 --> 00:52:38,000
Speaker 1: more than two million dollars And that's two million dollars

959
00:52:38,080 --> 00:52:42,680
Speaker 1: in eighteen hundreds money. Yeah, that's way more. But he

960
00:52:42,680 --> 00:52:50,320
Speaker 1: would be a kajillionaire, crazy crazy, that's accurate estimation there um.

961
00:52:50,360 --> 00:52:55,480
Speaker 1: And he requested a an extension to that patent but

962
00:52:55,600 --> 00:52:59,120
Speaker 1: was denied. Patents do, like I said earlier, expire, and

963
00:52:59,120 --> 00:53:02,760
Speaker 1: when they expire, you lose that exclusivity. You cannot demand

964
00:53:02,800 --> 00:53:07,239
Speaker 1: licenses for it. That technology, that implementation of that technology

965
00:53:07,320 --> 00:53:10,960
Speaker 1: then belongs to the public, so anyone can create any

966
00:53:11,000 --> 00:53:14,160
Speaker 1: kind of device using that sort of approach um that

967
00:53:14,640 --> 00:53:16,960
Speaker 1: was originally covered by that patent that's now expired. So

968
00:53:17,440 --> 00:53:20,319
Speaker 1: he doesn't get the extension he wanted, and he dies

969
00:53:20,360 --> 00:53:22,160
Speaker 1: of a broken heart. He doesn't really die of a

970
00:53:22,160 --> 00:53:24,279
Speaker 1: broken heart. His heart was broken earlier in his life

971
00:53:24,280 --> 00:53:26,239
Speaker 1: when his wife died, but it did not kill him

972
00:53:26,280 --> 00:53:30,000
Speaker 1: to the best of our knowledge. However, some say that

973
00:53:30,040 --> 00:53:34,600
Speaker 1: it did kind of spur his because he just needed

974
00:53:34,600 --> 00:53:38,720
Speaker 1: to focus on something else. Um. But singer of course

975
00:53:38,840 --> 00:53:43,760
Speaker 1: continued to work his magic in the sewing machine industry,

976
00:53:43,840 --> 00:53:47,120
Speaker 1: and now as a consequence, you know, he's really the

977
00:53:47,200 --> 00:53:49,600
Speaker 1: name we remember more than a lie us how Yeah, yeah,

978
00:53:49,680 --> 00:53:52,120
Speaker 1: you see that name all over the He was exceptional

979
00:53:52,160 --> 00:53:56,280
Speaker 1: at marketing, very much again, kind of like Edison, who

980
00:53:56,600 --> 00:53:59,839
Speaker 1: was brilliant in many ways, and one of the big

981
00:54:00,280 --> 00:54:03,600
Speaker 1: was that he was a very smart businessman and marketer.

982
00:54:04,160 --> 00:54:07,040
Speaker 1: So yeah, this is again you can see the parallels

983
00:54:07,160 --> 00:54:11,240
Speaker 1: with modern patent wars. Everything from the cooperation of various

984
00:54:11,320 --> 00:54:15,239
Speaker 1: companies to make sure that business can continue, the arguments

985
00:54:15,280 --> 00:54:19,920
Speaker 1: that patent litigation harms innovation, that that patent that's sitting

986
00:54:19,920 --> 00:54:23,920
Speaker 1: on patent's harms innovation. These are not new ideas. No,

987
00:54:24,080 --> 00:54:27,160
Speaker 1: you gotta look at you know, early to mid nineteenth

988
00:54:27,160 --> 00:54:29,879
Speaker 1: century and you can see it all there as well.

989
00:54:30,000 --> 00:54:33,879
Speaker 1: So very interesting that there's so much in common with

990
00:54:33,920 --> 00:54:36,600
Speaker 1: what we see today. Guys, thank you for joining me

991
00:54:36,680 --> 00:54:39,360
Speaker 1: on this classic episode of tax stuff. I hope you

992
00:54:39,400 --> 00:54:41,719
Speaker 1: found it as fascinating as I did. It always is

993
00:54:41,760 --> 00:54:45,520
Speaker 1: interesting to me to see how these older technologies actually

994
00:54:46,160 --> 00:54:50,839
Speaker 1: ended up having some very interesting modern problems associated with them,

995
00:54:50,880 --> 00:54:54,080
Speaker 1: like this whole patent war situation. If you guys would

996
00:54:54,120 --> 00:54:56,880
Speaker 1: like me to discuss any particular topic. Maybe it's a

997
00:54:57,000 --> 00:55:00,399
Speaker 1: technology or a company or a person that in tech

998
00:55:00,480 --> 00:55:02,160
Speaker 1: that you think is really important. Maybe you want me

999
00:55:02,200 --> 00:55:05,600
Speaker 1: to have a specific guest on as either an interview

1000
00:55:05,680 --> 00:55:08,000
Speaker 1: or a co host. Let me know. Send me an

1001
00:55:08,000 --> 00:55:11,560
Speaker 1: email the addresses tech stuff at how stuff works dot com,

1002
00:55:11,640 --> 00:55:14,040
Speaker 1: or draw me a line on Twitter or Facebook the

1003
00:55:14,080 --> 00:55:17,200
Speaker 1: handle of both of those tech stuff hs W. Remember

1004
00:55:17,239 --> 00:55:20,239
Speaker 1: you can follow us on Instagram and you can join

1005
00:55:20,360 --> 00:55:23,400
Speaker 1: me live when I record this show on Wednesdays and Fridays.

1006
00:55:23,600 --> 00:55:26,680
Speaker 1: Just go to twitch dot tv slash tech stuff and

1007
00:55:26,719 --> 00:55:35,120
Speaker 1: I'll talk to you again really soon. For more on

1008
00:55:35,200 --> 00:55:37,960
Speaker 1: this and thousands of other topics, visit how staff works

1009
00:55:37,960 --> 00:55:48,120
Speaker 1: dot com