Devon Biere’s Blog

Did you know that U.S. patent applicants were once required to submit small, physical models of their inventions (“not more than twelve inches square … neatly made”)?  I had no idea.  This Wired article provides some fascinating background and a nice gallery of models.

After the patent office stopped requiring models, it spent more than 50 years trying to figure out what to do with them. Before they were auctioned in 1925, mostly to Sir Henry Wellcome, a pharmaceuticals magnate, they had a variety of homes in the nation’s capital. They were stuffed anywhere space could be found in the patent office building, but eventually lost their spots.  “Crowded out of the hallways, the models were put on display in a rented building. Early in the present century a wave of economy caused that practice to be abandoned,” reads a 1925 New York Times article. “For a while the old models were stored in a leaky tunnel near the House of Representatives’ office building.”

Seeing these clever, intricate models provides some interesting color to the ongoing debates surrounding intellectual property.  As software programs and processes and business methods become dominant in the modern patent battleground, I can’t help but think that most of these “inventions” pale in comparison to the zipper, the dental drill, or the mouse.