Did you know that Albert Einstein worked at the Swiss patent office in the early 1900s? I did not, until a patron asked about his work with the USPTO. I felt like that was a little factoid I would know, because the USPTO would absolutely love to tell people about it, so I decided to do a little research.
As it turns out, Einstein was not employed by the US Patent Office. However, he did work for the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property.
Much like I had imagined the USPTO would have done had it employed Einstein, the Swiss IGE proudly boasts of his time there between 1902 and 1909, and even has a group of webpages dedicated to information about his time there.
I wanted to try to search for patents he has examined, but it turns out most patents that old are not well-indexed enough to search for with very specific parameters. Of course the Swiss IGE has a few listed that he most likely examined personally (with a disclaimer) because they aren't 100% certain either. From my point of view, it's also not nearly as fun as trying to craft the exact query phrase to find just his patents.
If you're interested in learning more, here's a link to the Swiss IGE page about Einstein.
And here's a list of the patents they believe he examined personally, copied from their page:
- Pat.-Nr. 39561 (pdf): Gravel sorter
- Pat.-Nr. 39619 (pdf): Meteorological station controlled by ambient humidity
- Pat.-Nr. 39853 (pdf): Electrical typewriter with shuttle-type carrier
- Supplementary-Pat.-Nr. 39988 (pdf) (to main patent Nr. 38853):
Alternative-current commentator motor with short-circuit brushes and opposite-mounted auxiliary coils for spark suppression
Anyway, check back next week for a lengthier post about IP I was able to actually search for a post.
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