Firefighting and Intellectual Property
By
John Richards
[1]
Del
Goldsmith retired as a partner of Ladas & Parry quite a number of years
ago. Until rather recently, Del would still show up at our New York office and
practice his chosen profession of being a patent lawyer. To us, Del is a
well-loved colleague. To the people of Patterson, New York, however, one of his
claims to fame is as a member of the Fire Department (he is still a member of
the Fire Police). When talking with Del, it is difficult to determine which is
his greater interest: intellectual property or the fighting of fires. In this
paper, we shall try to bring the two together.
Organized
fire fighting antedates any intellectual property right, unless that is one
accepts the idea that Greco-Roman makers marks were a form of trademark or
copyright claim, but there is little support for this view. About 2,000 years
ago Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus, better known by his title as princeps:
Augustus, instituted a fire-fighting cohort in Rome under a
praefectus
vigilum.
The cohort was equipped with apparatus for spraying water on to a fire based on
force pumps that had been invented 300 years earlier by Ctesibus in Alexandria.
After the fall of the Roman Empire, technology levels fell so that by the time
of William the Conqueror all that was available was a simple bucket and a metal
sheet with which one was required to cover one's domestic fires each night on
the tolling of the curfew (“couvre feu”) bell.
Further
technical progress did not come until sixteenth century Portugal where there
was introduced a new device known as a water squirt. This was essentially a
large syringe, about one meter long, which could be filled with water and
squirted on to the fire. Three men were needed to operate it. In 1518, Blattner
in Augsberg developed a mobile version mounted on a wheeled carriage. However,
such devices still left much to be desired.
The
first major breakthrough came in the 1670's with the invention of the
so-called Dutch engine by van der Heiden of Amsterdam. His revolutionary step
was the use of leather hosepipes and couplings to join lengths of hose together
to enable water to be directed on to the fire in a continuous stream. He also
devised means to suck water from the canals to be used in his engine and wrote
the first book, entitled Slang-Brand-Spuiten, on fire fighting. For all this he
was awarded the right to be the exclusive producer of engines of this type for
a twenty-five year period. Similarly, in 1699, Louis XIV awarded a period of
exclusivity to Du Mourier and Du Perrier for their portable fire-fighting pump.
In
1721, Richard Newsham obtained an English patent
[2]
for a “New Water Engine for Quenching and Extinguishing fiers”
(sic). In these machines, pistons in the squirting chambers were operated by a
chain running over toothed quadrants that were rocked up and down by pumping
levers. A further patent on an improved version followed in 1725.
[3]
It is claimed that one version of this machine could pump 160 gallons of water
in one minute to a height of 165 feet. From 10 to 20 men were required to act
as pumpers on the leavers and the traditional chant to maintain the rhythm was
“beer-oh, beer-oh”, passers by being pressed into service and
supplied with free beer for their pains. (Whether this is the source of the
traditional British objection to a patent claim that claimed a solution to a
known problem without defining the means used as a “free beer
claim” is open to conjecture.)
Some of Mr. Newsham's engine designs still exist and can be seen at the Hall of Flame Museum of Firefighting in Phoenix. Arizona.
Some of Mr. Newsham's engine designs still exist and can be seen at the Hall of Flame Museum of Firefighting in Phoenix. Arizona.
Somewhat
surprisingly, throughout most of the 18th century, fire engines continued to
have to be manhandled to the site of a fire. It was only in the 1790's that
Charles Simpkin obtained patents on improvements that enabled engines to be
horse drawn, notably a steerable fore carriage and introduction of road
springs. He also obtained a patent for replacement of leather valves that had
been used previously by metal ones.
The ability to
reach the site of a fire relatively quickly led to the one major link between
the history of fire fighting and trademarks. In the late eighteenth and early
nineteenth centuries, insurance had become big business and insurance against
losses caused by fire became possible. Each insurance company had a clear
incentive to minimize the loss on any property it insured. Thus, they formed
their own fire fighting units. However, they did not wish to waste their
time fighting fires on which some other insurer would bear the loss. Therefore,
it became a requirement that properties insured by a particular insurance
carrier displayed that company's brand mark. Such marks may be seen outside
some buildings to this day.
The
next major step forward was the application of steam power to the fighting of
fires. This took hold relatively slowly. Watt's steam engine, adding a separate
condenser to Newcomen's design, had been patented in 1769
[4]
and his double acting engine in 1782.
[5]
The first steam locomotive was patented by Tevethick in 1802
[6]
and there had been extensive litigation about Fulton's steamboat patents in the
United States
[7],
long before Braithwaite and Ericsson [8]
came up with the first steam fire engine in 1828. The boiler took twenty
minutes to heat up but once it got going it could pump water at a rate of 150
gallons per minute to a height of 90 feet. Firemen did not like it. They said
it was too powerful and used up too much water.
The
first New York steam fire engine of Hodge in 1840 was an advance over that of
Braithwaite and Ericsson in that it not only used steam power for pumping water
but also for propulsion of the engine. Unfortunately it still needed horses to
maneuver. It met a similar fate to the Braithwaite and Ericsson machine. As
late as 1877, patents were still being granted for what were in effect hand
pumped machines, one to Levi Taylor
[9]
being directed to “the peculiar construction and arrangement of the brake
lever, cylinders and piston rods with respect to each other, whereby a greatly
increased leverage and corresponding power is secured”. A little earlier
W. F. Padwick
[10]
had patented a dual-purpose machine for “damping and powdering turnip
plants etc” which could be adapted to fire fighting use by attaching a
hose. A patent to F. Fowke focused on the connection of the pistons of the
pumps to the working handles.
[11]
In
1859, there was finally produced an engine, dubbed “the steam
elephant” that did everything by steam and could be steered without the
need for horses.
[12]
An improved machine having the same abilities followed in 1861.
[13]
Unfortunately, the enthusiasm for developing steam propulsion in the United
Kingdom was then severely dampened by the Locomotive Act of 1861, which
required that all self-propelled vehicles be preceded by a man walking with a
red flag. There were no special provisions for emergency vehicles in those days.
For much of the rest of the nineteenth century most developments were in the United States, many of them by Truchson La France either while he was with the Elmira Union Iron Works or later after he formed his own company. [14] In 1872, in a patent which is of interest in its use of disclaiming language in the introduction to the claim, Albert F. Allen claimed a means for reducing the weight of fire engines to avoid the need for a cast iron bed for the boiler etc. [15] His design utilized a "hollow metallic bed, which is divided into two or more separate chambers, which communicate, resepctively, with the induction and eduction sides of the pump...." His design can be seen to the right. In 1882, B. J. C Howe patented the replacement of reciprocating pumps by rotary pumps in a “horse-power fire-engine”. [16]
One of the major late nineteenth century developments was the introduction of the telescopic ladder in the mid to late 1800's. An example of an "Improved Fireman's Extension Ladder" can be seen in U.S. Patent 79768 of July 7, 1868 to the left. This patent ws issued to Mr. Robert H. Jones of San Francisco, California. Mr. Jones' ladder could be maneuvered next to a "lofty" building and an horizontal platform at its upper end could be used to aid the escape of persons in the building. Later came the introduction of the first turntable ladders by Magirus in 1892. [17]
