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Hi! I'm Rich Beem. I'm a patent attorney in Chicago. I have a
very interesting and unique collection of original old
patent documents that were signed by the President, the
Secretary of State, and the Attorney General of the United
States. I'd like to tell you a little bit about this
collection. I'm standing now in the reception room of my offices
in Chicago where all of these originals are actually on the
wall. This particular patent is on a patent for a method of
making rope. It was patented in 1831 and is signed by the
President of the United States, Andrew Jackson. Also by the
Secretary of State, Edward Livingston and by the Attorney
General, Roger Taney. Taney went on to become the Chief Justice,
the longest serving Chief Justice in the U.S. Supreme
Court. In part of the story of these patents, these are the
story of the technology and the infrastructure that was being
built in the United States in the early days of the
country. Every one of these patents talks about the year of
the United States which was one thousand eight hundred and of
the United States of America. It will say the number of years the
United States will have been in existence. The patents were very
important to the development of the competitiveness of the U.S.
This patent over here - and each one of these is on parchment,
which is actually the leather from the fetus of a sheep that's
how they made things they wanted to last at that time. They
couldn't make paper at that time that they could trust to last
how long they wanted the patent to last. These were important
documents. This is a patent for a pan and furnace for
evaporating liquids. It is signed by James Monroe, as the
President of the United States. This was in 1825. It was also
signed by John Quincy Adams, as Secretary of State and by
William Wirt, as Attorney General of the United States.
They actually had a pony at the patent office. There were only
about 2 people who worked in the patent office. And when they got
a patent application they would send the man on the pony around
to collect the signatures of the President, the Secretary of
State, and the Attorney General. I'm Rich Beem. I've been telling
you about the history of two of these old, original U.S.
patents that are a part of my collection. I'm going to
continue this story by talking about other items in the
collection on the next video. Thank you for joining me!