Patents

Reed & Barton Patents

Henry Reed began using the US Patent system to register, promote, and protect Reed & Barton designs in 1860. With a combination of utility patents covering manufacturing methods, electroplating technologies, and metallurgical advances, and design patents covering aesthetics, shapes, and patterns, the company’s history can be charted through its filings. Because the development of the company paralleled the development of the US patent office, the combined Reed & Barton patents beautifully illustrate the history of the entire patent system and its regulations. Link below to complete database of Reed & Barton US Patents.

The Baker Library at Harvard Business School holds well over 100 original patent documents as well as a number of trademark and copyright filings. These documents are especially useful because many predate the standardization of filing requirements imposed in 1871. The US Patent Office redrew earlier patents to create black-and-white images. The original hand-written application text was often not transcribed. Today, all digital versions of US patent filings available online were created by scanning these later copies. The only record of the original watercolor images and the explanatory written descriptions are on copies retained by the patent applicant.

Because Reed & Barton had its own in-house photography department, the company filed many design patents with photographs tipped in. This was allowed, but not often used; most applicants did not have the resources to do so. These patents have also suffered in digitized ad the photographs were scanned automatically and are now often unintelligible (see below). Henry Reed’s earliest filed patent, from 1860, includes a photograph of the patented teapot. Compare the original from Harvard with the version available on the Google Patent database:

• Link to patents at Harvard Baker Business Library

• PDF with all Reed & Barton assigned patents and links to them online