The First Patents

 

 

Florence, 1421
The dome, designed by architect and all-rounder Filippo Brunelleschi, for the Duomo di Santa Maria dei Fiori in Florence, between 1418-1436. A Medici commission.

 

 

 

In 1421 the Republic of Florence awarded the world's first patent for invention to Filippo Brunelleschi (1377-1446), a prominent inventor and architect, for the design of a new boat, dubbed Il Badalone - the Monster. This was a kind of paddle steamer for carting Carraran marble and other heavy loads for his famous Duomo of Florence. The boat sank or lost its load halfway up the Arno.

 

The text of Brunelleschi's patent for Il Badalone


The Magnificent and Powerful Lords, Lords Magistrate, and Standard Bearer of Justice:


Considering that the admirable Filippo Brunelleschi, a man of the most perspicacious intellect, industry, and invention, citizen of Florence, has invented some machine or kind of ship, by means of which he thinks he can easily, at any time, bring in any merchandise and load on the river Arno and on any other river or water, for less money than usual, and with several other benefits to merchants and others, and that he refuses to make such machine available to the public, in order that the fruit of his genius and skill may not be reaped by another without his will and consent;

and that, if he enjoyed some prerogative concerning this, he would open up what he is hiding and would disclose it to all;


And desiring that this matter, so withheld and hidden without fruit, shall be brought to light to be of profit to both said Filippo and our whole country and others, and that some privilege be created for said Filippo as hereinafter described, so that he may be animated more fervently to even higher pursuits and stimulated to more subtle investigations, they deliberated on 19 June 1421;


That no person alive, wherever born and of whatever status, dignity, quality, and grade, shall dare or presume, within three years next following from the day when the present provision has been approved in the Council of Florence, to commit any of the following acts on the river Arno, any other river, stagnant water, swamp, or water running or existing in the territory of Florence: to have, hold, or use in any manner, be it newly invented or made new in form, a machine or ship or other instrument designed to import or ship or transport on water any merchandise or any things or goods, except such ship or machine or instrument as they may have used until now for similar operations, or to ship or transport, or to have shipped or transported, any merchandise or goods on ships, machines, or instruments for water transport other than such as were familiar and usual until now, and further that any such new or newly shaped machine, etc. shall be burned;


Provided however that the foregoing shall not be held to cover, and shall not apply to, any newly invented of newly shaped machine, etc. designed to ship, transport or travel on water, which may be made by Filippo Brunelleschi or with his will and consent; also, than any merchandise, things, or goods which may be shipped with such newly invented ships, within three years next following, shall be free from imposition, requirement, or levy of any new tax not previously imposed.
Source:

 
 

 

A seminal invention of Brunelleschi (one which he did not patent) was the technique of linear perspective, somewhere between 1410-1420. The theory of perspective develops from a single fact - the apparent size of an object decreases with increasing distance from the eye.

No written record exists from Brunelleschi's experiments, so it is likely that he passed the method verbally to Masaccio, Masolino, and Donatello, who used it in their works. Brunelleschi, Masaccio and Donatello are considered to have laid the foundations for the Renaissance in Italy.

Leon Battista Alberti (1404-1474) first documented the theory of perspective in his treatise on painting, Della pittura (1435), giving practical information for painters. He described the method of obtaining a correct view of a scene by observing it through a thin veil, or velo and then tracing its outline.

 

Alberti, Della pittura, 1435

 

Such transmission of an entirely new method in visual representation allowed others to build upon this innovation and extend its possibilities. Albrech Durer and others designed drawing machines based on this technique.

 


One of Durer's drawing machines

 

Venice 1474

It was in the Venetian Republic, on March 19, 1474, that the first known general
patent statute was enacted. This statute, which sought to encourage technological
advancement by issuing private grants and importation licenses, established a foundation for the world’s first patent system, leading one historian to proclaim that “the international patent experience of nearly 500 years has merely brought amendments or improvements upon the solid core established in Renaissance Venice.” It did so with overwhelming support in the Venetian legislature.

The Venetian statute included all the features of modern patent law. It had a
utilitarian purpose of encouraging innovation set forth in its preamble; provided
inventors with exclusive rights if their inventions proved to be useful, novel, and
nonobvious and were reduced to practice; required disclosure in exchange for
monopoly rights; limited the monopoly granted by both geography and time; and provided for enforcement. The statute, which has been characterized as “a considerable success,” vastly expanded the issuance of patents in Venice.

 
Source: http://www.law.nyu.edu/journals/liberty/Images/Morriss_Patents.pdf

From Venice, the use of monopoly patents to reward both innovators and
importers of new techniques spread throughout Europe, due in part to the migration of Venetian artisans and craftsman. [... ]The first of the northern European states to follow Venice down this path ... was Britain.

 
The first patent in England was granted by Henry VI in 1449 to a Flemish man for a 20 year monopoly on the manufacture of stained glass (for Eton College). Unlike the situation in Australia and the US the current length of UK/EU patents is still 20 years.

 

 

Dürer's copyright notice - 1511:

Hold! You crafty ones, strangers to work, and pilferers of other men’s brains. Think not rashly to lay your thievish hands upon my works. Beware! Know you not that I have a grant from the most glorious Emperor Maximillian, that not one throughout the imperial dominion shall be allowed to print or sell fictitious imitations of these engravings? Listen! And bear in mind that if you do so, through spite or through covetousness, not only will your goods be confiscated, but your bodies also placed in mortal danger.

source: Copyright Law and Practice by William F. Patry

 

---> a lovely bonnet, some corn porridge, patents in the United States,
and the enclosure of Indigenous knowledge