President Abraham Lincoln

President Abraham Lincoln is the only U.S. president to hold a patent, number 6469, granted in May 22, 1849. Although Lincoln’s patent to assist riverboats over shoals. was never transformed into a successfully manufactured product, he subsequently would eloquently recognize, absent patents “any man might instantly use what another had invented; so that the inventor had no special advantage from his own invention. The patent system changed this; secured to the inventor, for a limited time, the exclusive use of his invention; and thereby added the fuel of interest to the fire of genius, in the discovery and production of new and useful things.”