Fight for Patent

George B Selden,

a patent lawyer and inventor from Rochester, NY, was granted a US patent (No.549, 160) in late 1895 for an “improved road engine” powered by a “liquid-hydrocarbon engine of the compression type.” Don’t confuse the timeline of the previous posts too each one has a different significance.

Inspired by George Brayton’s internal-combustion engine that was displayed at the Centennial Exposition in Philadelphia in 1876, Selden began working on a smaller, lighter version. He succeeded two years later in producing a one-cylinder, 400-pound version, which featured an enclosed crankshaft. The announcement took place eight years before the public introduction of the Benz Patent Motorwagen in Europe. The Benz Patent-Motorwagen, built-in 1886, is widely regarded as the first automobile.

SELDEN PATENT,

the first and most bitterly contested of all the automobile patents. The original application for a patent on a vehicle propelled by an internal combustion engine was filed in 1879, and issued in 1895. Rights to the patent shifted from the Pope Manufacturing Company to the Electric Vehicle Company, which in 1900 vigorously enforced its patent rights by filing suit against the Winton Motor Carriage Company. The case was abandoned when Winton and nine other companies formed the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers and agreed to pay royalties.

Selden’s patent application, originally filed May 8, 1879, included not only the engine but also its use in a four-wheeled car. Several amendments to the application stretched out the process and delayed the granting of the patent until November 5, 1895.

In 1899, Selden sold his patent to the EVC (Electric Vehicle Company), which comprised a group of investors. They, in turn, sued the Winton Motor Carriage Company, the largest car manufacturer in the United States, for infringing on the Selden patent just by building gas-powered cars. Winton settled, and the court upheld Selden’s patent in 1903.

Henry Ford refused to participate in the agreement, and in 1903 an infringement suit was filed against him. After eight years of litigation, Ford finally prevailed. The court of appeals, overturning a lower court judgment, ruled that although the Seldon patent was valid for two-cycle motors as per the design specifications of the original patent, it was not being infringed by Ford, whose vehicles used four-cycle engines.

To protect the patent, several major car manufacturers, including Winton, Packard, and Cadillax, got together with Selden and the EVC to form ALAM (the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers). Henry Ford, the owner of Ford Motor Company, founded in Detroit, MI, in 1903, initially applied for ALAM membership, but his application was rejected. Later that year, the ALAM sued Ford (and others) for patent infringement. The heavily publicized legal fight lasted eight years and ended in a victory for Selden. Ford appealed, and on January 10, 1911, one year before the Selden patent was set to expire, won his case based on an argument that the engine used in automobiles was not based on George Brayton’s engine, the engine that Selden had improved, but on the Otto engine.

Source: edn.com, encyclopedia.com.