Description
Book SynopsisAmerica loves innovation and the can-do spirit that made this country what it is—a world leader in self-government, industry, technology, and pop culture. Everything about America has been an experiment and a leap of faith. And one such experiment—upon which all others depend for success—is the U.S. Patent System.
Why Has America Stopped Inventing? takes a close look at why this experiment appears to be failing, and why America has all but stopped inventing.
Our belief that we are the most innovative people on earth is mistaken.
Statistics show that today we invent less than half of what our counterparts did a century and a half ago. Look around: Where are the groundbreaking inventions comparable to those from the Industrial Revolution? It’s unforgivable that we’ve been using the same mode of transportation for over a century. Why are we giving trillions of dollars every year to hostile foreign nations for imported oil when we have the inventive talent in America to solve the nation’s energy crisis?
We don’t have these desperately needed technologies because regular Americans have given up on inventing. Why Has America Stopped Inventing? compares some of America’s most successful 19th century inventors with those of today, showing Jefferson refusing to waste any more weekends examining patent applications, Whitney being robbed of his fortune while the South’s wealth exploded, the patent models that kept British soldiers from burning Washington’s last-standing federal building, the formation of Lincoln’s cabinet, and Selden crippling the entire U.S. Auto Industry. It also tells the largely unforgotten stories of the Wright brother’s airplane monopoly, the Colt revolver’s role in the Mexican American War, the Sewing Machine wars, the last six months of Daniel Webster’s life, and the controversy surrounding the first telephone patents.
Table of ContentsTable of Contents
Preface
Introduction: The Patent Game
Chapter One: Life Could Be Better
Chapter Two: How America’s Innovation Began—Eli Whitney
Chapter Three: The U.S. Gets Her First Patent Office
Chapter Four: America’s Laws Get Broken In
Chapter Five: In Come the Models
Chapter Six: America Gets Rubber Fever
Chapter Seven: A New Patent Office and Patent Statute
Chapter Eight: The Patent Office Rescues Colt and Morse
Chapter Nine: McCormick and Goodyear Secure Their Rotunda Fame
Chapter Ten: Singer Starts the Patent Wars
Chapter Eleven: Colt Turns to the Courts
Chapter Twelve: Goodyear Seeks Out Daniel Webster
Chapter Thirteen: The Legal Elite Join the Fight: Lincoln and His Future Cabinet Take Sides on the McCormick Reaper Case
Chapter Fourteen: Morse Encounters Salmon P. Chase
Chapter Fifteen: The Aftermath
Chapter Sixteen: The Old Curiosity Shop Is Mothballed
Chapter Seventeen: The Telephone and the Automobile
Chapter Eighteen: The Patent Office Confronts the Ether
Chapter Nineteen: In Come the Wright Brothers
Chapter Twenty: Where Did the Inventors Go?
Chapter Twenty One: The Staggering Cost of Inventing
Chapter Twenty Two: How Do We Fix This?
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