Sewing Machine
Elias Howe, USA, patent 4,750 of 1846. The locked-stitch machine and the first patent pool.
Overview
Howe patented the lockstitch with eye-pointed needle, then won a famous 1854 suit against Singer for royalties. Competing patents, Wheeler and Wilson, Singer, Grover and Baker, blocked each other until the 1856 sewing machine combination, history's first patent pool, freed production. Home sewing transformed garment economics and factory labor, employing generations of women. Singer's installment-plan sales built a global brand. The pool became the legal template for pooling standard-essential patents today.
Related Patents
Colt Revolver
Colt patented his revolving-cylinder pistol in 1836, failed, then revived on Texas and Mexican War orders. His real innovation was...
3D Printing
Hull, working nights at a furniture-sunlight-cure shop, patented stereolithography in 1986 and founded 3D Systems. His STL file fo...
Paper Bag Machine
Margaret Knight devised a machine that cut, folded and glued flat-bottomed paper bags, which stand up on their own and hold far mo...
Steamboat
Fulton's North River Steamboat, the Clermont, ran New York to Albany in 1807 under a New York state monopoly from his patent right...