In 1641, Samuel Winslow was granted the first
patent
A patent is a type of intellectual property that gives its owner the legal right to exclude others from making, using, or selling an invention for a limited period of time in exchange for publishing an enabling disclosure of the invention."A p ...
in
North America
North America is a continent in the Northern Hemisphere and almost entirely within the Western Hemisphere. It is bordered to the north by the Arctic Ocean, to the east by the Atlantic Ocean, to the southeast by South America and the Car ...
by the
Massachusetts General Court
The Massachusetts General Court (formally styled the General Court of Massachusetts) is the state legislature of the Commonwealth of Massachusetts. The name "General Court" is a hold-over from the earliest days of the Massachusetts Bay Colony, ...
for a new process for making salt.
["Manufactures of the United States in 1860; compiled from the original returns of the eighth census, under the direction of the Secretary of the interior", Publisher: Government Printing Office, Washington, 1865, p. cxcix: "Salt-making was commenced at Salein in 1636, and in 1641 Samuel Winslow was allowed, for 10 years, the exclusive right of making salt in Massachusetts by a new method."]
See also
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History of patent law
The history of patents and patent law is generally considered to have started with the Venetian Statute of 1474.
Early precedents
There is some evidence that some form of patent rights was recognized in Ancient Greece. In 500 BCE, in the Greek ...
*
History of United States patent law
The history of United States patent law started even before the U.S. Constitution was adopted, with some state-specific patent laws. The history spans over more than three centuries.
Background
The oldest form of a patent was seen in Medieval ti ...
References
People of colonial Massachusetts
History of patent law
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