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A patent model was a scratch-built miniature model no larger than 12" by 12" by 12" that showed how an invention works. It was one of the most interesting early features of the United States patent system.

Since most early inventors were ordinary people without technological or legal training, it was difficult for them to submit formal patent applications which require the novel features of an invention to be described using words and a number of diagrams. Actually, the patent system then was very crude by today's standards. It was a good idea for these amateur inventors to submit a model with a brief explanation or drawing of it.

Patent models were required from 1790 to 1880. The Congress of the U.S. abolished the legal requirement for them in 1870. However, the U.S. Patent Office (USPTO) kept this requirement until 1880. Some inventors still willingly submitted models at the turn of the 20th century.

Patent models were required up until 1880 but are no longer required by the USPTO. However, in some cases, an inventor may still want to present a "working model" as an evidence to prove actual reduction to practice in an interference proceeding.

The models were sold off by the patent office in 1925 and were purchased by Sir Henry Wellcome, the founder of the Burroughs-Wellcome Co. (now the Glaxo-Wellcome Co.). Although he intended to establish a patent model museum, the stock market crash of 1929 damaged his fortune; the models were left in storage. After his death, the collection went through a number of ownership changes; a large portion of the collection--along with $1,000,000--was donated to the nonprofit United States Patent Model Foundation by Cliff Peterson. Rather than being put into a museum, these models were slowly sold off by the Foundation. A saga of legal wrangling, purchasing, and re-selling ensued.[1] A comparatively small number of models (4,000) are currently the property of the Rothschild Patent Museum.[2]

• "Patent Models' Strange Odyssey" by Teresa Riordan, The New York Times, February 18, 2002.
• The Rothschild Petersen Patent Model Museum
• The patent model of Alexander Graham Bell's No. 174,465 invention
• Patent model windmill c.1860-70

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