The first patent in America was granted in 1646 to a Mr. Joseph Jenkes by the General Court of Massechusets, was to protect his scyth mill from competition. Patents in the early days were not to benefit an inventor, as they are now. They were to encourage a businessman or industrialist to invest in a shop or mill, by extending to him a monopoly for a period of time. At times, they even rewarded the businessman who stole industrial secrets from a foreign operation, in order to get that technology at work in the colonies or later, in the U.S.
The patent to Jenkes appears to be in that tradition, and relates to his establishment of a water mill, and reads:
At a generall Courte at Boston
the 6th of the 3th mo 1646
The Cort considringe ye necessity of raising such manifactures of
engins of mils to go by water for speedy dispatch of much worke wth
few hands, F.r being sufficiently informed of ye ability of ye
petitionr to
pforme such workes grant his petition (yt no othr pson shall set up,
or use any such new invention, or trade for fourteen yeares w'hout ye
licence of him ye said Joseph Jenkes) so farr as concernes any such new invention, & so as it shalbe alwayes in
ye powr of this Corte to restrain ye exportation of
such manifactures, & ye prizes of them to moderation if occasion so require.
In the original, it looked like this:
1646 is four years before the first corporate charter in the United States (and in North America), also issued by the Great and General Court of Massachusetts, to the President and Fellows of Harvard College in 1650.
Posted by: Harold L. Burstyn | June 28, 2005 at 06:53 AM
Even with the bad spellling, this is still more legible than much of the obtuse patent language used today.
Posted by: Arthur | June 28, 2005 at 07:57 AM