About Eugene Ushomirsky Expertise I can answer questions about: all inventions in mankind history,facts
of inventors life, historical facts about company or brand creation,
American and world history, history and sightseeing of Connecticut,
New York state.
Experience Invention, inventors, history
Organizations None
Publications None
Education/Credentials Technical colledge
Awards and Honors Second place out of 120 experts in section "Science/Inventors/Inventions" of website www.askme.com
Question Dear Eugene: I read some time ago, that by the end of the XIX or beginning of the XX century, some one in the US. Patents Office said - that is the quote I am after - that everything had practically been invented.That there was not much left to invent. Could you be so kind as to give this quote, person, office, date, etc. or any other quote of this kind, which will be useful for me. Best regards, Rolando Stein.
Answer "Everything that can be invented has been invented."
Charles H. Duell, U.S. Commissioner of Patents, in 1899.
Rumor has it...
that a Patent Office official resigned and recommended that the Patent Office be closed because he thought that everything that could possibly be invented had already been invented!
While that statement makes good fun of predictions that do not come to pass, it is none the less just a myth. Researchers have found no evidence that any official or employee of the U.S. Patent Office had ever resigned because there was nothing left to invent. A clue to the origin of the myth may be found in Patent Office Commissioner Henry Ellsworth's 1843 report to Congress. In it he states, "The advancement of the arts, from year to year, taxes our credulity and seems to presage the arrival of that period when human improvement must end." But Commissioner Ellsworth was simply using a bit of rhetorical flourish to emphasize the growing number of patents as presented in the rest of the report. He even outlined specific areas in which he expected patent activity to increase in the future.
Taken out of context, such remarks take on a life of their own and are perpetuated in publication after publication whose authors, rather than check facts, copy and quote each other. For example, recent publications have attributed the "everything that has been invented..." quote to a later commissioner, Charles H. Duell, who held that office in 1899. Unlike Ellsworth, who may have been merely misquoted, there is absolutely no basis to support Duell's alleged statement. Just the opposite is true.
Duell's 1899 report documents an increase of about 3,000 patents over the previous year, and nearly 60 times the number granted in 1837. Further, Duell quotes President McKinley's annual message saying, "Our future progress and prosperity depend upon our ability to equal, if not surpass, other nations in the enlargement and advance of science, industry and commerce. To invention we must turn as one of the most powerful aids to the accomplishment of such a result." Duell adds, "May not our inventors hopefully look to the Fifty-sixth Congress for aid and effectual encouragement in improving the American patent system?" These are unlikely words of someone who thinks that everything has been invented.
