Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent

Ill. Mr. Whitney Comes to Hartford

Ill Mr. Whitney Comes to Hartford THERE is no doubt that in 1895 the Selden automobile was obsolete . The patent disclosed nothing that pushed forward the frontiers of technology. In its details, the Selden structure was inferior to the horseless carriages made by automotive pioneers after 1885. But, as the creation of a patent lawyer, the Selden car was an almost impeccable legal invention. All United States patents are valid on their face; and, according to the claims of his grant, Selden was the original inventor of the gasoline automobile. That he had not constructed an actual motor car did not affect the status of his patent. At its issue, the Selden patent received the blessing of high authority. In his annual report for 1895, Commissioner of Patents John S. Seymour heralded it as one "which may be considered the pioneer invention in the application of the compression gas engine to road or horseless carriage use." The patent had immense potential value because it awarded the inventor a legal monopoly when the commercial possibilities of the gasoline motor car loomed on the American industrial horizon. 1 Seymour's generous praise found no support from those who were actually building motor vehicles. Inventors took scant notice of the Selden claims when the patent was published in Horseless Age. That journal reflected the viewpoint of most automotive experimenters when it observed: "Many have contended and still contend that no basic patents can be held in the application of a hydro-carbon engine to the propulsion of road vehicles." Some investors, it acknowledged, were reluctant to enter the motor car 49 Monopoly on Wheels industry for fear of infringing a fundamental patent. Horseless Age assured the timid that "no basic patents are obtainable in this line."l Generally it was the investor, rather than the engineer or technician , who became alarmed when knowledge of the patent spread throughout the industry. One night in 1896 Charles E. Duryea was routed out of his bed in the Grand Union Hotel in New York by one of his stockholders in the Duryea Motor Wagon Company. The investor was limp with anxiety over the Selden patent, but Duryea did not share his feelings. "If I had seen mention of the patent before that time," said Duryea in his account of the incident, "it produced so little impression that I arn unable to recall it." 2 Duryea had patented his own automobile on June 11, 1895, about six months before the Selden patent was issued. It is conceivable that he could have framed an application for a broad patent , but he had been satisfied to base his claims on particular improvements . Like any other automotive pioneer, he did not believe it was possible to engross an invention that was in the public domain. Duryea took the measure of the Selden patent, detecting in the Brayton engine the flaw in its broad claims: "I maintain that this type of engine shown and described by Selden is the type understood and referred to by him as a 'liquid hydro-carbon gas engine of the compression type,' and that if he is entitled to anything he is entitled to a device employing this type only."3 Others were even more forthright in condemning the claims. European automotive engineers who had built marketable machines while the Rochester lawyer was still amending his application derided the Selden patent. When it came to the attention of Panhard & Levassor, their technical director scornfully characterized it as "antediluvian" and rejected the patent as a wholly useless guide to the construction of an operable automobile. Selden held only a paper patent. That he had not built a car was another reason why automotive designers and manufacturers ignored or ridiculed his claims. One may make out a case for the inventor of modest means who in 1879 set down the first comprehensive description of the motorized road carriage. If the Selden horseless carriage had occupied in 1895 the same relative position it occupied in the art in 1879, there would be no question that the inventor deserved honors, fame, and 5° in Mr, Whitney Comes to Hartford a fair material reward. But the automotive art had moved forward with great strides. None of its leading inventors was indebted to Selden. On the contrary, he was under heavy obligation to others who had improved the key element of his patent. Selden later said that long before receiving...