Customer Reviews

The Patent Office Pony: A History of the Early Patent Office

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I found "The Patent Office Pony" to be similar to the organization of the early patent office. Patents weren't always documented well and the patent models were strewn throughout the office with little thought for systematic organization. This book needs to have a little organization superimposed onto it.

There are lots of interesting anecdotes and character outlines in this book but they aren't put together into a satisfying and coherent narrative. This book could really use the guiding hand of an editor. It could use some redaction help down to the level of paragraphs and sentences; sometimes there is too much repetition; ideas come and go willy nilly; ideas are presented without the reader being properly prepared, etc. I think because it was issued by one of the lesser printing presses of the United States that they skimped a little on the editorial blue pencil.

I have been looking for a book that does justice to the genius of inventors and their inventions and I still haven't found it. The only other book I could find on the history of the patent office was a government monograph done in the 1930's. It was well organized, but government monographs aren't exactly written to put the flesh and blood onto the dry bones of history.

The Patent Office Pony does have some good stories and you can deduce the general outlines of early American patent history but if you're looking for the definitive history of the patent office you have not found it here. I give it two stars for the bounty of anecdote and facts that make it easy to go in other directions for research purposes.

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). When the government began issuing patents in 1790, Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson served as a patent examiner. The Confederacy had its own patent office. 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.

This book provides an excellent and entertaining history of the US patent system.

The Patient Office Pony is an excellant introduction to the early history of the U.S. Patient Offices, both Federal and Confederate.