The reviewer of this patent was Thomas Jefferson, the Secretary of State and himself an inventor, whose work area was filled with gadgets he had devised (perhaps he examined the patent on the famous portable desk that he invented in 1775). Jefferson next passed the document to the Secretary of War for his review and then obtained signatures from the Attorney General and, finally, from President Washington.

Jefferson found himself overwhelmed by an outpouring of American inventiveness. By 1793, patent examining duties had been reassigned to a State Department clerk, until the Patent Office was formed in 1802. Today there are more than five million patents that have been issued to Americans and other nationals by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.

Prior to the Patent Act of July 4, 1836, patents were issued by name and date rather than number. The Patent Office had already issued nearly 10,000 patents, when a fire destroyed many of the original records in December of 1836. Using private files, the office was able to restore 2,845 patents. The restored records were issued a number beginning with an "X" and called the "X-Patents." Thus the first patent ever issued was actually designated patent X1. The patents that could not be restored were cancelled.

RELATED INFORMATION:
Book Resources on the subject of Patents.  from The Great Idea Finder
Historic Patents of the Unired States  from The Great Idea Finder
First Patent Issued  pot ash improvement  from The Great Idea Finder
Patent Information including history and purpose.  from The Great Idea Finder
Prolific Inventors based upon the number of Patents issued   from The Great Idea Finder
Rumor Has It everything has been invented.  from The Great Idea Finder
Web Resources dedicated to Patents.  from The Great Idea Finder

ON THE BOOKSHELF:
The Patent Guide: A Friendly Guide to Protecting and Profiting from Patents
by Carl W. Battle / Paperback - 192 pages (November 1997) / Watson-Guptill Pubns
Geared toward the businessperson and individual inventor, this overview takes the reader from inception to patent drafting, follows an application through the Patent Office, shows how to select legal representation if needed, and concludes with information on infringement procedures, foreign protection options, and licensing and marketing an invention.
Patent Searching Made Easy: How to Do Patent Searching on the Internet and in the Library
by David Hitchcock / Paperback - 208 pages 2nd edition (April 2000) / Nolo Press
This book should be a valuable aid to most inventors and an excellent starting point for first-time inventors.
A History of the Early Patent Offices : The Patent Office Pony ( This title is out of print. )
by Kenneth W. Dobyns / Hardcover - 249 pages Reprint edition (1997) /Sergeant Kirkland's
Abraham Lincoln stated that the patent system added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius. He was the only U.S. President who was a patentee (no.6,649, for inflatable bellows that helped to buoy a boat over shoals). These and many other facts can be found in this book, which relates a detailed history of the U.S. Patent System from 1790 to 1900.
Those Inventive Americans ( This title is out of print. )
by National Geographic Society / Hardcover - 231 pages (1971) / NGS-Special Pub. Division

ON THE WEB:
United States Patent & Trademark Office
As expected, the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office (USPTO) offers a plethora of resources to the inventing community.
(URL: www.uspto.gov)
The Patent Office Pony; A History of the Early Patent Office
The Patent Office Pony, formerly available from Sergeant Kirkland's Press, original text available online
(URL: www.myoutbox.net/popstart.htm)
U.S. Patent & Trademark Office Patent Search
Federal data base of Patent information. A freely searchable database of information from US patents issued since the first in 1790 up to and including the previous month. New, improved and expanded database! Effective 1 October 2000, the database now offers all US patents issued since 1790, in the form of searchable patent numbers and current US classifications hyperlinked to full-page images of each page of each patent.
(URL: patents.uspto.gov)
Patent Searching Tutorial
Tutorial on how to select an appropriate patent Web site for research, with specific help on searching the IBM Patent Server via patent number.
(URL: bubl.ac.uk/link/p/patents.htm)
Digital Reference
Listing of full text references provided on this website concerning Patent Office History
(URL: www.myoutbox.net/polist.htm)

WORDS OF WISDOM:
"The first thing you want in a new country, is a patent office." - Mark Twain, 1889

DID YOU KNOW?:

• Thomas Jefferson was the first Patent Examiner.
• In 1790, the cost to obtain a patent was between $4 and $5.
• The first U.S. patent was granted on July 31, 1790, to Samuel Hopkins of Pittsford, Vt., for an improvement in "the making of Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process."
• Mary Kies of Killingly, Conn., was the first women to obtain a patent. In 1809 she received a patent for a way to weave "straw with silk or thread."
• Chester Carlson was a patent agent who tired of having to make multiple copies of patent applications using the only duplication method available at the time: carbon paper. In 1959 he came up with a new copying system and took it to IBM for evaluation. The "experts" at IBM determined potential sales to be only 5,000 units because people wouldn’t want to use a bulky machine when they had carbon paper. Carlson’s invention was the xerography process, the company founded on the system is Xerox.
• Abraham Lincoln, congressman from Illinois, received Patent No. 6,469 for "A Device for Buoying Vessels over Shoals." The idea of the invention was that if a ship ran aground in shallow waters, the bellows would be filled with air, and the vessel, thus buoyed, would float clear. The model Lincoln whittled can be seen at the Smithsonian's National Museum in Washington.
• Mark Twain (Samuel L. Clemens) received Patent No. 121,992 for "An Improvement in Adjustable and Detachable Straps for Garments." He later received two more patents: one for a self-pasting scrapbook and one for a game to help players remember important historical dates.