USPO Manual of Classification
The US Patent Office (later USPTO) published at intervals a book known generally as the Manual of Classification. This publication may help us to get some idea of the historical development of the classification system in the realm of aeronautics. At the beginning, categories are listed under the name of the patent examiner responsible for examining them. In our time frame the examiners number in the dozens.
It's a public domain government publication and (at least some) scans are available online.
- 1908 on Internet Archive
- HathiTrust index – links to 1908, 1916, 1920, and later
- 1912 on HathiTrust
Category 244, Aeronautics appears in 1912 but not 1908. It falls under the auspices of examiner Colwell, who also examines Air-Guns, Ammunition, Boats, Firearms, Marine Propulsion, Ordnance, and Ships (see MC 1912, p. 12).
The 1912 outline of the aeronautics category appears at right. Further explication of the categories is found at p. 493 of the same manual. Definition:
Except as hereinafter noted this class contains and is limited to structures adapted for floating or being propelled in the air–as balloons, flying machines, parachutes, kites, etc.—and the necessary appliances for aiding and controlling such flight.
The 1912 arrangement is entirely different from the present version; perhaps the only overlap is USPC 244/1, "Miscellaneous".
See also Skinner, a motive force of classification and patent management.
- 1861 Classification of Subjects of Invention, fully scanned on Hathitrust. Wow! 38 pages basically. I see classes A-U, 21 of them, a couple of which are subdivided. Class K is Hydraulics and Pneumatics, and includes Balloons: [1]. A different class R, Navigation, includes propellers: [2]. Steam engines are in another category. I didn't find kites anywhere, but they might be included within games or toys, which have category H.
- 1895: Official Gazette of the USPO, supplement containing the Revised Classifiation of Subject of Invention, on Hathitrust: [3]. By this time there's been a switch to numbers. About 200 classes are numbered from 2-213, and they have many many subclasses, totalling more than 1000. We don't know how patents were actually labeled and whether these are subclasses or the lighter subject-matter labels. There's no sub-class for flying machines. Kites are under 'games and toys', and there were 26 patents in this group in the period considered. Kites were in division 7.
| Original title | Classification of Subjects of Invention of the United States Patent Office |
|---|---|
| Simple title | Manual of Classification |
| Authors | United States Patent Office |
| Date | |
| Countries | US |
| Languages | en |
| Keywords | patents, history, patent examiner |
| Journal | |
| Related to aircraft? | -1 |
| Page count | |
| Word count | |
| Wikidata id |
