The history of patents and patent law is generally considered to have started with the Venetian Statute of 1474.Helmut Schippel: Die Anfänge des Erfinderschutzes in Venedig, in: Uta Lindgren (ed.): Europäische Technik im Mittelalter. 800 bis 1400. Tradition und Innovation, 4. Aufl., Berlin 2001, S.539–550
Early precedents There is some evidence that some form of patent rights was recognized in Ancient Greece. In 500 BCE, in the Greek city of Sybaris (located in what is now southern Italy), "encouragement was held out to all who should discover any new refinement in luxury, the profits arising from which were secured to the inventor by patent for the space of a year."Charles Anthon, A Classical Dictionary: Containing An Account of the Principal Proper Names Mentioned in Ancient Authors, And Intended To Elucidate All The Important Points Connected With The Geography, History, Biography, Mythology, And Fine Arts Of The Greeks And Romans Together With An Account Of Coins, Weights, And Measures, With Tabular Values Of The Same, Harper & Bros, 1841, p. 1273. Athenaeus, writing in the third century CE, cites Phylarchus in saying that in Sybaris exclusive rights were granted for one year to creators of unique culinary dishes.Phylarchus of Naucratis, "The Deipnosophists, or, Banquet of the Learned of Athenæus", Translated from Ancient Greek by H. Bohn 12:20, p. 835
In England, grants in the form of letters patent were issued by the sovereign to inventors who petitioned and were approved: a grant of 1331 to John Kempe and his company is the earliest authenticated instance of a royal grant made with the avowed purpose of instructing the English in a new industry.Terrell on Patents, 8th edition edited by J R Jones, London (Sweet & Maxwell) 1934.E Wyndham Hulme, The History of the Patent System under the Prerogative and at Common Law, Law Quarterly Review, vol. 46 (1896), pp. 141–154. These letters patent provided the recipient with a monopoly to produce particular goods or provide particular services. Another early example of such letters patent was a grant by Henry VI in 1449 to John of Utynam, a Flemish man, for a twenty-year monopoly for his invention.
The first extant Italian patent was awarded by the Republic of Venice in 1416 for a device for turning wool into felt. Ted Sichelman & Sean O’Connor, Patents as Promoters of Competition: The Guild Origins of Patent Law in the Venetian Republic, 49 San Diego L. ReV. 1267 (2012). Soon thereafter, the Republic of Florence granted a patent to Filippo Brunelleschi in 1421.Terence Kealey, The Economic Laws of Scientific Research, St. Martin's Press, 1996Gregory A Stobbs, Software Patents, Aspen Publishers, 2000, , p. 3. Specifically, the well-known Florentine architect received a three-year patent for a barge with hoisting gear, that carried marble along the Arno River.Christine MacLeod, Inventing the Industrial Revolution: The English Patent System, 1660–1800, Cambridge University Press, 2002, , p. 11.
Development of the modern patent system Patents were systematically granted in Venice as of 1450, where they issued a decree by which new and inventive devices had to be communicated to the Republic in order to obtain legal protection against potential infringers. The period of protection was 10 years. These were mostly in the field of glass making. As Venetians emigrated, they sought similar patent protection in their new homes. This led to the diffusion of patent systems to other countries.M. Frumkin, "The Origin of Patents", Journal of the Patent Office Society, March 1945, Vol. XXVII, No. 3, pp 143 et seq.
King Henry II of France introduced the concept of publishing the description of an invention in a patent in 1555. The first patent "specification" was to inventor Abel Foullon for "Usaige & Description de l'holmetre", (a type of rangefinder.) Publication was delayed until after the patent expired in 1561. Patents were granted by the monarchy and by other institutions like the "Maison du Roi" and the Parlement of Paris. The novelty of the invention was examined by the French Academy of Sciences. Digests were published irregularly starting in 1729 with delays of up to 60 years. Examinations were generally done in secret with no requirement to publish a description of the invention. Actual use of the invention was deemed adequate disclosure to the public.Frank D. Prager, “Proposals for the Patent Act of 1790", Journal of the Patent and Trademark Office Society, March 1954, vol XXXVI, No. 3, pp 157 et seq., citing J. Isore in Revue Historique de Droit Francais, 1937 pp. 117 et seq.
The English patent system evolved from its early medieval origins into the first modern patent system that recognised intellectual property in order to stimulate invention; this was the crucial legal foundation upon which the Industrial Revolution could emerge and flourish.;
By the 16th century, the English Crown would habitually grant letters patent for monopolies to favoured persons (or people who were prepared to pay for them). Blackstone (same reference) also explains how "letters patent" (Latin literae patentes, "letters that lie open") were so called because the seal hung from the foot of the document: they were addressed "To all to whom these presents shall come" and could be read without breaking the seal, as opposed to "letters close", addressed to a particular person who had to break the seal to read them.
This power was used to raise money for the Crown, and was widely abused, as the Crown granted patents in respect of all sorts of common goods (salt, for example). Consequently, the Court began to limit the circumstances in which they could be granted. After public outcry, James I of England was forced to revoke all existing monopolies and declare that they were only to be used for "projects of new invention". This was incorporated into the 1624 Statute of Monopolies in which Parliament restricted the Crown's power explicitly so that the king could only issue letters patent to the inventors or introducers of original inventions for a fixed number of years. It also voided all existing monopolies and dispensations with the exception of:
The statute became the foundation for later developments in patent law in England and elsewhere. The first patent recorded in England as granted to a woman was in 1637 to Mrs. Amye Everard Ball for a tincture of saffron.
Important developments in patent law emerged during the 18th century through a slow process of judicial interpretation of the law. During the reign of Queen Anne, patent applications were required to supply a complete specification of the principles of operation of the invention for public access. Patenting medicines was particular popular in the mid-eighteenth century and then declined.Alan Mackintosh, Authority and Ownership: the growth and wilting of medicine patenting in Georgian England, British Journal for the History of Science 2016, Legal battles around the 1796 patent taken out by James Watt for his steam engine, established the principles that patents could be issued for improvements of an already existing machine and that ideas or principles without specific practical application could also legally be patented.
This legal system became the foundation for patent law in countries with a common law heritage, including the United States, New Zealand and Australia. In the Thirteen Colonies, inventors could obtain patents through petition to a given colony's legislature. In 1641, Samuel Winslow was granted the first patent in North America by the Massachusetts General Court for a new process for making potash salt.James W. Cortada, "Rise of the knowledge worker, Volume 8 of Resources for the knowledge-based economy", Knowledge Reader Series, Butterworth-Heinemann, 1998, p. 141, .
Towards the end of the 18th century, and influenced by the philosophy of John Locke, the granting of patents began to be viewed as a form of intellectual property right, rather than simply the obtaining of economic privilege. A negative aspect of the patent law also emerged in this period – the abuse of patent privilege to monopolise the market and prevent improvement from other inventors. A notable example of this was the behaviour of Boulton & Watt in hounding their competitors such as Richard Trevithick through the courts, and preventing their improvements to the steam engine from being realised until their patent expired.
Eighteenth century Richard Arkwright obtained a "Grand Patent" covering the spinning frame and other inventions in 1775. Subsequent infringements by mill-owners led him to take legal action to assert his rights. A series of trials began in 1781, and in the last of them (1785), Arkwright's claims as an inventor were called into question, Highs, Kay and Kay's wife Sarah all testifying that Arkwright had stolen High's invention of the rollers "by the medium of Mr Kay". Subsequently it was variously claimed that Arkwright had envisaged the design before meeting Kay,Espinasse (1874) p.408 & p.391, Dr Ure: "This straightforward expedition in constructing a complex machine affords unquestionably a conclusive proof that Arkwright must have thoroughly matured his plan of a drawing-roller frame before he ever called upon Kay, and that he employed this workman partly on account of his reputation as a clever clockmaker, but chiefly from his living at a distance from Bolton where Arkwright resided, and where he would not wish any hints of his projects to transpire." that Kay had stolen High's ideas, or that Kay conceived the machine as well as building it.
The case did not settle the question of authorship, but was notable for clarifications of patent law in the instructions given by the judge to the jury: they must find the patent null, regardless of authorship, if they considered it insufficiently novel, or if Arkwright had failed to adequately specify the technology in the patent documents. Presumably on these grounds, the jury set aside the patents—a loss for Arkwright, as well as for Highs and Kay.
Consolidation The modern French patent system was created during the Revolution in 1791. Patents were granted without examination since inventor's right was considered as a natural one. Patent costs were very high (from 500 to 1500 francs). Importation patents protected new devices coming from foreign countries. The patent law was revised in 1844 – patent cost was lowered and importation patents were abolished. The revision saw the introduction of the Breveté SGDG, which excluded any guarantees that the patented item would actually satisfy its specification.
The Patent and Copyright Clause of the United States Constitution was proposed in 1787 by James Madison and Charles Cotesworth Pinckney. In Federalist No. 43, Madison wrote, "The utility of the clause will scarcely be questioned. The copyright of authors has been solemnly adjudged, in Great Britain, to be a right of common law. The right to useful inventions seems with equal reason to belong to the inventors. The public good fully coincides in both cases with the claims of the individuals."
The first Patent Act of the U.S. Congress was passed on April 10, 1790, titled "An Act to promote the progress of useful Arts."Online at Library of Congress: "A Century of Lawmaking for a New Nation: U.S. Congressional Documents and Debates, 1774–1875": First Congress, Session II, chapter VII, 1790: "An Act to promote the progress of useful Arts". The first patent was granted on July 31, 1790 to Samuel Hopkins for a method of producing potash (potassium carbonate).