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Patent number 1Patent number 1Posted Jan 7, 2013 19:01 UTC (Mon) by Wol (guest, #4433)In reply to: it will be full of lawyers and special interest groups by jospoortvliet Parent article: The USPTO Would Like to Partner with the Software Community ... Wait. What? Really? (Groklaw)
Actually, while it wasn't technology, I believe patent no 1 actually DID do as it was meant to do, advancing medicine and saving thousands of lives of mothers and babies.
A family of doctors invented the "paddle", the predecessor of the suction cup they put on babies heads to pull them out if they have to. They kept it as a trade secret, blindfolding the labouring mum, and sending everybody else out of the room.
The patent got it into the hands of physicians everywhere and saved many lives.
That said, it could easily be the last patent that worked as intended, too ...
Cheers,
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Patent number 1 Posted Jan 7, 2013 19:07 UTC (Mon) by robert_s (subscriber, #42402) [Link]
"patent no 1"
Perhaps patent no 1 in the US.
The first patent (in the concept of patents) was probably granted in 5th century Italy.
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