Sunday, December 30, 2001

Ingenuity's Blueprints, Into History's Dustbin
Tonight, at least 30 large recycling bins are sitting in a driveway near the patent office's public search room, crammed with documents ready for destruction.

A few random swoops into the bins produce aged prints of patent documents dated from the 1880's and 90's, with spidery intricate sketches of inventions.
Four of the reproductions have the name T. A. Edison at the top of the page.

That's Thomas Alva Edison, the inventor of the light bulb and the holder of more than 1,000 United States patents. One of the sketches retrieved from the dust bin of bureaucracy is of Mr. Edison's "dynamo electric machine or motor," patented March 15, 1892.
http://www.nytimes.com/2001/12/30/national/30PATE.html

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