| THE SELDON PATENT by Gerald R. Wolfe in 3 parts. |
 This model was submitted to the U.S. Patent Office May, 8 1879 with the patent application. Overall length is 10 inches. The engine simulates a Brayton engine modified by Selden. Photograph is from the Smithsonian Institution were this model is kept. |
| The patent and the automotive industry came together to create a turmoil that left neither car nor patent the same. Virtually every nut and bolt in the automobile was patented and litigation for infringement poured into the courts. But the biggest blow, with the most far reaching effect, was the patenting of the automobile itself. J. Harold Byers, in the Journal of the Patent Office Society (October, 1940, said: “The Selden case was one of those events that give rise to legends. So widespread was the interest in this case and so incomprehensible to the lay mind were some of the facts involved, that garbled accounts were circulated, some having but slight foundation in truth. Moreover. because the history of the Selden patent epitomized practices which came to be regarded as abuses, and because the Selden patent by reason of the prominent position and immense financial resources of the industry to which it related, constituted a magnified cross section of the patent system, the case provided a target for reform. Thus it has come about that the Selden case has been quoted and misquoted, panned and damned, and used to illustrate almost everything that is, was, or could possibly be the matter with the patent system.” The intent of this article is to examine Selden, his patent and the men and events surrounding them in an attempt to present a more clear and comprehensive picture of this confusing and complex issue. George B. Selden (1846-1922), a patent lawyer from Rochester, New York, was the man who patented the automobile. Though a horseman at the time He entered the Civil War as a union cavalryman, a number of unpleasant incidences with his assigned mount, culminating in a near-fatal accident, contributed to turning his thoughts toward horseless locomotion. He has been credited with having “designed and built the first internal combustion engine actually operative for the purpose. This engine was capable of driving a vehicle over the road at 14 miles per hour. In 1879 He filed His application for patent. . . This was nearly five years prior to Benz, Daimler and other well known European automobile pioneers, and substantially twenty years before the beginning of the American gasoline industry.” Selden’s intent, as stated in his patent application, was, “the production of a safe, simple and cheap road-locomotive light in weight, easy to control, and possessed of sufficient power to overcome any ordinary inclination.” Two pertinent objections could be raised against Selden. |
