Existing comment:
"The patent system added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius."
-- President Abraham Lincoln, 1861-65
A Storehouse of Invention:
Patents give inventors sole rights to their inventions, but to be granted this protection, the idea must be a new one. When Baldrige Hall served as the Patent Search Room, inventors and attorneys filled the desks lining the room to explore existing patents and make sure their ideas were truly original. Stacks flanking the hall stored more than three million patents, the legacy of a few famous and many little-known inventors. |