The United States provided many inventions in the time from the Colonial Period to the Gilded Age, which were achieved by inventors who were either native-born or naturalized citizens of the United States. Copyright protection secures a person's right to his or her first-to-invent claim of the original invention in question, highlighted in Article I, Section 8, Clause 8 of the United States Constitution, which gives the following enumerated power to the United States Congress:

In 1641, the first patent in North America was issued to Samuel Winslow by the General Court of Massachusetts for a new method of making salt."Manufactures of the United States in 1860; compiled from the original returns of the eighth census, under the direction of the Secretary of the interior", Publisher: Government Printing Office, Washington, 1865, p. cxcix: "Salt-making was commenced at Salein in 1636, and in 1641 Samuel Winslow was allowed, for 10 years, the exclusive right of making salt in Massachusetts by a new method." On April 10, 1790, President George Washington signed the Patent Act of 1790 (1 Stat. 109) into law proclaiming that patents were to be authorized for "any useful art, manufacture, engine, machine, or device, or any improvement therein not before known or used". On July 31, 1790, Samuel Hopkins of Pittsford, Vermont became the first person in the United States to file and to be granted a patent for an improved method of "Making Pot and Pearl Ashes". The Patent Act of 1836 (Ch. 357, 5 Stat. 117) further clarified United States patent law to the extent of establishing a patent office where patent applications are filed, processed, and granted, contingent upon the language and scope of the claimant's invention, for a patent term of 14 years with an extension of up to an additional 7 years. However, the Uruguay Round Agreements Act of 1994 (URAA) changed the patent term in the United States to a total of 20 years, effective for patent applications filed on or after June 8, 1995, thus bringing United States patent law further into conformity with international patent law. The modern-day provisions of the law applied to inventions are laid out in Title 35 of the United States Code (Ch. 950, sec. 1, 66 Stat. 792).

From 1836 to 2011, the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) has granted a total of 7,861,317 patents relating to several well-known inventions appearing throughout the timeline below.

Colonial Period (1500s–1775) 1717 Swim fins Swim fins, also known as fins, or flippers, are blade-shaped extensions worn on feet or hands for use in water. They aid movement in aquatic sports such as swimming, surfing, and underwater diving. Swim fins are typically made of rubber or plastic. Benjamin Franklin invented wooden swim fins in 1717. His original design consisted of and palettes. Contrary to today's version of rubberized swim fins worn on the feet, Franklin's swim fins were originally intended for use on a person's hands. Shaped like lily pads or an artist's paint palette, they helped attain greater speed with each stroke. Franklin has since been posthumously honored by being inducted into the International Swimming Hall of Fame.

1730 Octant

An octant, also called "reflecting quadrant", is a measuring instrument used primarily in navigation. It is a type of reflecting instrument that uses mirrors to reflect the path of light to the observer and, in doing so, doubles the angle measured. This allows the instrument to use a one-eighth circle arc to measure a quarter circle or quadrant. The octant was invented in 1730 by Thomas Godfrey, a glazier in Philadelphia, and independently at the same time in England by the mathematician John Hadley, who began work on a similar version of the octant. Both men have an equal and legitimate claim to the invention of the octant. Originally this instrument was referred to as "Hadley's quadrant", after the English inventor. These days it is now known as an octant, the name given to it by its American inventor, Thomas Godfrey.

1742 Franklin stove The Franklin Stove, also known as the circulating stove, is a metal-lined fireplace with baffles in the rear to improve the airflow, providing more heat and less smoke than an ordinary open fireplace. The stove became very popular throughout the Thirteen Colonies and gradually replaced open fireplaces. The Franklin stove was invented by Benjamin Franklin in 1742.

1744 Mail order A mail-order catalog is a publication containing a list of general merchandise from a company. Those who publish and operate mail-order catalogs are referred to as catalogers within the industry, who also buy or manufacture goods and then market those goods to prospective customers. Mail ordering uses the postal system for soliciting and delivering goods. According to The National Mail Order Association, Benjamin Franklin invented and conceptualized mail order cataloging in 1744.

1749 Lightning rod A lightning rod is one component in a lightning protection system. In addition to rods placed at regular intervals on the highest portions of a structure, a lightning protection system typically includes a rooftop network of conductors, multiple conductive paths from the roof to the ground, bonding connections to metallic objects within the structure and a grounding network. Individual lightning rods are sometimes called finials, air terminals or strike termination devices. In 1749 or 1750, the pointed lightning rod conductor, also called a "lightning attractor" or "Franklin rod", is generally thought to have been conceived when Benjamin Franklin came to the conclusion that electricity and lightning were identical and of the same. By building lightning rods originally intended to be adorned atop church steeples, Franklin set about trying to prove their usefulness of shielding people and buildings from lightning. By 1752, Dr. Franklin tied the string of his "electrical kite" to an insulating silk ribbon for the knuckles of his hand. The kite in turn was attached to a metal key. During a storm, witnessed by his son William Franklin, Dr. Franklin had finally proven that lightning was a form of electricity when the metal key received an electrical charge from a bolt of lightning. Thus, the practical use of lightning rods, attributed to the inventor Benjamin Franklin, was confirmed.

1752 Flexible urinary catheter In medicine, a catheter is a tube that can be inserted into a body cavity, duct, or vessel. Catheters thereby allow drainage, injection of fluids, or access by surgical instruments. Prior to the mid 18th-century, catheters were made of wood or stiffened animal skins which were not conducive to navigating the anatomical curvature of the human urethra. Extending his inventiveness to his family's medical problems, Benjamin Franklin invented the flexible catheter in 1752 when his brother John suffered from bladder stones. Dr. Franklin's flexible catheter was made of metal with segments hinged together in order for a wire enclosed inside to increase rigidity during insertion.

1761 Armonica Also known as the glass harmonica or glass armonica, Benjamin Franklin invented a musical instrument in 1761, an arrangement of glasses after seeing water-filled wine glasses played by Edmund Delaval in Cambridge, England. Dr. Franklin, who called his invention the "armonica" after the Italian word for harmony, worked with London glassblower Charles James to build one, and it had its world première in early 1762, played by Marianne Davies. In this version, 37 bowls were mounted horizontally nested on an iron spindle. The whole spindle turned by means of a foot-operated treadle. The sound was produced by touching the rims of the bowls with moistened fingers. Rims were painted different colors according to the pitch of the note.

Independence and the Federalist Era (1776–1860) 1776 Swivel chair A swivel or revolving chair is a chair with a single central leg that allows the seat to spin around. Swivel chairs can have wheels on the base allowing the user to glide the chair around their work area without getting up. This type of chair is common in modern offices and is often also referred to as an office chair. Using an English-style Windsor chair which was possibly made and purchased from Francis Trumble or Philadelphia cabinet-maker Benjamin Randolph, Thomas Jefferson invented the swivel chair in 1776. Jefferson heavily modified the Windsor chair and incorporated top and bottom parts connected by a central iron spindle, enabling the top half known as the seat, to swivel on casters of the type used in rope-hung windows. When the Second Continental Congress convened in Philadelphia, Jefferson's swivel chair is purported to be where he drafted the United States Declaration of Independence. Jefferson later had the swivel chair sent to his Virginia plantation, Monticello, where he later built a "writing paddle" onto its side in 1791. Since 1836, the chair has been in the possession of the American Philosophical Society located in Philadelphia.

1782 Flatboat A flatboat is a rectangular boat with a flat bottom and square ends generally used for freight and passengers on inland waterways. After serving in the Pennsylvania Line during the American Revolutionary War, Jacob Yoder invented and built a large boat at the Redstone Old Fort on the Monongahela River, which he freighted with flour and carried to New Orleans in May 1782. This was the first attempt to navigate the Ohio and Mississippi rivers for commercial purposes.

1784 Bifocals

Bifocals are eyeglasses whose corrective lenses contain regions with two distinct optical powers. Benjamin Franklin is credited with the invention of the first pair of bifocals in the early 1760s, though according to the Library Company of Philadelphia, the first indication of Dr. Franklin wearing his double spectacles comes from a political cartoon printed in 1784. Many publications from that period onward refer to Dr. Franklin's double spectacles, including his first reference to them in a letter written in Paris, France, on August 21, 1784, that was addressed to his personal friend, English philanthropist George Whatley.

1785 Artificial diffraction grating

In optics, a diffraction grating is an optical component with a regular pattern, which diffracts light into several beams. The first man-made diffraction grating was invented around 1785 in Philadelphia by David Rittenhouse who strung 50 hairs between two finely threaded screws with an approximate spacing of about 100 lines per inch.

1787 Automatic flour mill

Classical mill designs were generally powered by water or air. In water-powered mills, a sluice gate opens a channel, starts the water flowing, and a water wheel turning. In 1787, American inventor Oliver Evans revolutionized this labor-intensive process by building the first fully automatic mill using bucket elevators, screw conveyors, and the hopper boy to spread, cool, and dry the meal between grinding and bolting. This was the first time that anyone had conceived and executed a system of continuous, fully automatic production.

1792 Cracker A cracker is a type of biscuit that developed from military hardtack and nautical ship biscuits. Crackers are now usually eaten with soup, or topped with cheese, caviar, or other delicacies. The holes in crackers are called "docking" holes as a means to stop air pockets from forming in the cracker while baking. Crackers trace their origin to the year 1792 when John Pearson of Newburyport, Massachusetts invented a cracker-like bread product from just flour and water that he called "pilot bread". An immediate success with sailors because of its shelf life, it also became distinctly known as a hardtack or sea biscuit for long voyages away from home while at sea.

1793 Cotton gin