The Confederate Patent Office was the agency of the

Confederate States of America The Confederate States of America (CSA), commonly referred to as the Confederate States or the Confederacy was an unrecognized breakaway republic in the Southern United States that existed from February 8, 1861, to May 9, 1865. The Confeder ...

charged with issuing

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 ...

s on

invention An invention is a unique or novel device, method, composition, idea or process. An invention may be an improvement upon a machine, product, or process for increasing efficiency or lowering cost. It may also be an entirely new concept. If an ...

s. The Chief Clerk during its entire existence was

Rufus Randolph Rhodes Rufus Randolph Rhodes (1818 – 1870) was born in Wilcox County, Alabama. Rhodes spent most of his life as an attorney in Mississippi. After serving a tenure in the United States Patent Office in Washington, D.C., he was appointed as first and ...

Mississippi Mississippi () is a state in the Southeastern region of the United States, bordered to the north by Tennessee; to the east by Alabama; to the south by the Gulf of Mexico; to the southwest by Louisiana; and to the northwest by Arkansas. Miss ...

who resigned his post at the

United States Patent Office The United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO) is an agency in the U.S. Department of Commerce that serves as the national patent office and trademark registration authority for the United States. The USPTO's headquarters are in Alex ...

after the election of

Abraham Lincoln Abraham Lincoln ( ; February 12, 1809 – April 15, 1865) was an American lawyer, politician, and statesman who served as the 16th president of the United States from 1861 until his assassination in 1865. Lincoln led the nation throu ...

. The Confederate Patent Office is known to have issued 266 patents, and likely it issued some more during the early months of 1865. Unfortunately, the records it contained were destroyed in a fire. Very few patent documents issued by the CPO, likely fewer than 10, are known to survive. The first patent was issued to James H. Van Houten of

Savannah, Georgia Savannah ( ) is the oldest city in the U.S. state of Georgia (U.S. state), Georgia and is the county seat of Chatham County, Georgia, Chatham County. Established in 1733 on the Savannah River, the city of Savannah became the Kingdom of Great Br ...

, on August 1, 1861, for a " breech-loading gun". One of the more well-known Confederate patents (at least based on the results) was Patent No. 100, granted to John Mercer Brooke for the design of the Confederate ironclad ship ''Merrimack'', more properly known as the CSS ''Virginia''. Confederate States Patent #60 was granted to Jacob B. and William L. Platt of Augusta, Georgia on January 7, 1862 for "Camp Cots."

External links

*{{cite book , url=https://archive.org/details/rulesdirectionsf00conf , title=Rules and Directions for Proceedings in the Confederate States Patent Office , author=Confederate States of America. Patent Office , author2=Rhodes, Rufus R , date=June 17, 1861 , publisher=Ritchie & Dunnavant, printers , location=Richmond, Virginia
The Confederate Patent Office
* ttps://web.archive.org/web/20090205013014/http://www.myoutbox.net/popchapx.htm List of all known patents issued by the Confederate Patent Office Patent offices United States patent law Patent Office 1862 establishments in the Confederate States of America 1865 disestablishments in the Confederate States of America Organizations based in Richmond, Virginia