The first organized system of patents developed in Renaissance Italy. �migr� Venetian glass-blowers spread the system through Europe, to protect their skills against those local workers.
The first recorded patent of invention was granted to one John of Utynam. In 1449, he was awarded a 20-year monopoly for a glass-making process previously unknown in England. (Subsequently, he supplied glass for the windows of Eton College Chapel). In return for his monopoly, John of Utynam was required to teach his process to native Englishmen. That same function is now fulfilled by the publication of a patent specification.
The first patents in the United States were granted by many of the states prior the adoption of a federal patent statute in 1790. Following the revolution in 1788 Article I, section 8 of the Constitution was ratified:
"The Congress shall have power... to promote the progress of science and useful arts by securing for limited times to authors and inventors the exclusive right to their respective writing and discoveries."The first patent examiners were the Secretary of State, the Secretary for the Department of War and the Attorney General. The Secretary of State at that time was Thomas Jefferson, who took a personal interest in inventions and examined patent application in considerable detail. The result was that few patents were being granted, so Congress passed a new Patent Act in 1793 which provided for the registration of patents without examination. In 1836 Congress formalized the patent granting process by establishing the United States Patent Office which was given the responsibility of examining patent applications for the quality of the underlying inventions.
The cornerstone of the modern patent system is the Paris Convention for the Protection of Intellectual Property of 1883, along with its many revisions. The Convention currently has approximately 110 signatory nations. It essentially guarantees that each signatory will extend the rights it gives its own people to citizens of other signatory countries.
The Convention provides for the right of priority. Having filed a first patent application in one country, the applicant then has one year in which to apply for patent protection in each of the other countries (known as Convention filing). All of these applications are then regarded as having been made on the same day as the first, and this is of great importance. Priority details appear on all patent documents. An international family of patents, relating to one invention, can then be traced easily. Today, virtually every government in the world grants patents.
In more modern times, i.e. the 1980's, we have seen the development of supra-national patent-issuing authorities, i.e. the European Patent Office and WIPO. These bodies provide for filing patent applications simultaneously in a number of countries. More recently (1995), the U.S. patent law has changed following the GATT agreement to harmonize USPTO practice with the patent system in other countries. Significant changes introduced June 8, 1995 as a result of GATT include a change of the patent term to 20 years from filing and, of particular value to the small inventor, provisional filing.
In the ten years between 1980 and 1990, U.S. company income from patent licensing rose from $3 billion to $15 billion a year. In 1993, it reached $63 billion and it is currently estimated to exceed $100 billion a year. The dramatically increased interest in patents has been fueled by a number of factors, most notably, increasing global business competitiveness: organizations must find more effective ways to protect and exploit their investments in research and development in order to maintain and increase their competitive position in the marketplace.
