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Patents were used very early in Great Britain to protect the rights of inventors. If anyone could copy or steal an invention there would not be much incentive to establish new innovations thus hurting the economy. Patents were intended to protect an invention for a set period of time to encourage the patent holder to invest time and money into the invention. The length of patent protection has changed over the years. Utility patents originally protected an invention for 14 years from the date of issue. In 1870 the term was lengthened to 17 years and in 1995 it was changed to 20 years from the date of filing. Design patents are usually for a period of 14 years, although 7 year terms are found.
President George Washington signed the first Patent Act in 1790. Prior to this some patents were issued by individual states. The first patent in the United States granted under the 1790 Patent Act was issued to Samuel Hopkins of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania on July 31, 1790. This was patent X1 and was for a new process in making potash and pearl ash. Prior to July 13, 1836 patents were not given numbers at the time of issue. They were identified by the issue date and the inventor. However in 1836 a fire destroyed the U. S. Patent Offices and all the records for these early patents were destroyed. It is estimated that there had been just under 10,000 patents issued before the fire. The records for these early patents have been recreated when possible and were then given a number with an X. The highest X patent number in the U. S. Patent Office database is X9900. On July 13, 1836 the numbering sequence started over again with the number 1. The first patent we could find for a butter churn was patent X812 granted on December 15, 1807 to John Scripture. We have never seen this butter churn.
The most common patents are utility patents and are granted for new inventions or improvements in an invention or process. They deal with function as opposed to appearance. Examples would be Nathan Dazey’s 1922 patent for a butter churn that included a screen or George West’s 1930 patent for a cream separator bottle with a dent. The other type of patent encountered in dairy antiques is a design patent. These patents were issued for a new ornamental design of an object. They related to the shape or appearance of an object rather than to its function. Examples of design patents would be Jack Dazey’s 1948 patent for the red football top churn or Michael Pecora’s 1936 patent for the Baby Top milk bottle. These patents do not claim any new improvements in the function of the object only their unique appearance.
The patent may cover the entire object or just a part of it. For example Jack Dazey’s 1948 design patent covered the ornamental design of the red football top butter churn. John Snyder Jr.’s 1946 patent that was assigned to the Standard Churn Company only covered the ornamental design of their tulip shaped jar and not the churn mechanism itself. On butter churns it is common to have the dasher patented such as the Lightning Butter Machine (1917) or Funk’s Folding Dash Churn (1868). It is also common to have the gearing that drives the churn be patented such as on Elmer’s Double Acting Churn (1880) or Hughes’ Vibratory Churn (1894).
One common mistake is that a patent date is assumed to be the date of manufacture. This is not the case. The patent date only establishes the earliest date that the item can be. For example many Cream Top milk bottles are embossed with the March 3, 1925 patent date yet the bottle was actually manufactured much later. This is a common mistake; especially in Ebay listings were sellers want the item to appear as old as possible. Patents are issued by the Patent Office once every week on Tuesdays and therefore patent dates will almost always fall on a Tuesday.
Typically patents were applied for 1-2 years in advance of their being issued. This resulted in a period where objects were marked patent applied for. In some cases, when the patent was finally issued the objects would start to be identified with the patent date. An example of this would be Blake-Hart milk bottles (1927). These bottles are found both embossed with the patent number and embossed pat. appd. for. In this case it would be safe to assume that the patent applied for bottles predate the ones with the patent number and that they would date just prior or a few years after the patent issue date. Other items were never updated when the patent was issued. Examples would be the Dazey red football top butter churn and Standard Churn Company’s tulip jar butter churns. We have only seen the jars on these butter churns marked patent applied for. We have never encountered a jar with the patent date or number even though we know that the patent was granted. On the other hand, the Gunn butter churn was marked PAT. APPL’D. on the handle but we do not know if the patent was ever actually granted. It is possible the patent was never issued or possibly the patent exists and the churn was never updated with the patent information.
Patents are owned like real property. They can be sold, leased or even willed in an estate. An assignment was a permanent transfer of the patent to another individual or company. The entire patent could be assigned or just part of it. Assignments were very common on milk bottle patents. Individual inventors would often assign their patent to a glass bottle manufacturer. Knowing these assignments gives an idea which milk bottle manufacturers controlled which patents. Often the inventor was an employee of the glass bottle manufacturer that he assigned the patent to.
Typically manufacturers used the patent date or patent number as a selling feature. It implied that their item was unique or incorporated a new idea. Most consumers were not aware that a design patent was only ornamental and would consider it the same as a utility patent. There were many, many patents issued that were probably never marketed to any extent. One of our favorites was for a rocking chair with a butter churn built into the armrest (picture). One could churn butter while they relaxed. Researching the patent papers allows one to get an idea of when the object was introduced and learn what the inventor was trying to accomplish. However after reading many patent papers one realizes it is not uncommon for the inventor to make claims that probably had no merit. |
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