In two hundred years of existence, the U.S. Patent Office has issued nearly five million patents, which together document the greatest industrial development in human experience.
How did it all start? To whom and for what was the first U.S. patent issued?
Samuel Hopkins, of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania [Pittsford, Vermont], received Patent No. 1 on July 31, 1790, for an improvement "in the making Pot ash and Pearl ash by a new Apparatus and Process." The patent was signed by President George Washington, Attorney General Edmund Randolph, and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson. Only two other patents were granted that year, one for a new candle-making process and the other the flour-milling machinery of Oliver Evans.
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