Patents

From the early days of the concept of time recorders there was a rush in the USA and Europe to patent new ideas, methods and engineering modifications to existing inventions to make money from what was then a booming market. There were hundreds of patents applied for by many inventors from around 1855 to the mid 1900's, with several inventors forming companies which succeeded in turning invention into profitable business. Many inventors patented their machines or ideas in several countries to prevent 'copying' abroad, and many copies of original ideas by other inventors were made with subtle modifications to gain and retain production rights. Plagiarism appears to have been rife, resulting in many law suits between companies and inventors. Patents were generally only valid for 20 years, so many manufacturers 'copied' original rival designs once the patent had expired.

The patent documents give full technical details and drawings of the inventions, and also an excellent insight to the inventors and their location at the time.

Very old UK patent documents are kept by The British Library, but most UK patents from 1870 onwards have now been scanned and are available on-line from the European patent website http://worldwide.espacenet.com/, which also includes some worldwide patents. Many US patent documents are also available online using the Google patents search engine.

Here are some interesting and relevant readable and printable PDF samples of the hundreds of documents filed:

PDF	Inventor	Location	Patent Date & Country	Machine	Comments
	John Adams	Northampton England	1855 GB	Time Check	Evidence of possibly the very first time recorder invention? Though I have included a document that gives his bankruptcy details in 1865
	William Maberly Llewellin	Glasgow Scotland	1883 USA	Time Check	Also refers to a 1881 GB patent
		Bristol England	1902 GB	Time Check	Recording improvement to a 1882 patent
		Bristol England	1911 GB	Card Recorder	Recording improvement
	Charles E Van Voorhis	Chicago USA	1888 USA	Autograph Recorder	A very early Autograph invention
	Alexander Dey	Glasgow Scotland	1889 USA	Dial Recorder	Also refers to a 1888 GB patent
	Alexander Dey	Glasgow Scotland	1903 USA	Dial Recorder	A patent registered jointly by the Dey brothers while living in different countries
	John Dey	Syracuse NY - USA
	Alexander Dey	Syracuse NY - USA	1904 USA	Dial recorder	A Patent Registered jointly by the Dey brothers now both in the USA
	John Dey
	Peter G Giroud	New York USA	1891 USA	Time Stamp	A patent to improve an earlier model
	The Accurate Time Stamp Company	New York USA	1892 USA	Time Stamp	An improved design to stamp a pre-printed card to record daily work hours
	Willard Le Grand Bundy	Auburn NY USA	1888 USA	Key Recorder	A very early key recorder design
		Binghampton NY - USA	1891 USA	Key Recorder	The first production key recorder
			1895 GB	Dial Recorder	Bundy's version of Dey's invention
			1898 GB	Autograph Recorder	Bundy's Autograph version
			1901 USA	Card Recorder	A Bundy Card recorder
			1902 USA	Card Recorder	Improvements to a Card Recorder
	Frank Brook	Huddersfield England	1893 GB	Time Checker	An early Frank Brook patent
			1897 GB	Autograph Recorder	Frank Brook's Autograph machine
			1905 GB	Dial Recorder	Brook's version of Dey's invention
	Edward G Watkins (Simplex)	Gardner USA	1893 USA	Button Recorder	A very early button press design
	Daniel M Cooper	Rochester NY USA	1894 USA	Card Recorder	One of the first Card Recorders
	John Thomas Gent	Leicester England	1894 GB	Time Check	An early mechanism patent from Gent
	William Whitehead	Manchester England	1894 GB	Autograph Recorder	An early Autograph machine patent, also refers to a 1891 patent
	J J Stockall Jr	London England	1898 GB	Time Check	An early Stockall patent
			1899 GB	Time Check	Improvement on the above machine
			1902 GB	Card Recorder	Stockall's card machine
	JJ Stockall Jr	Huddersfield England	1908 GB	Card Recorder	Stockall-Brook 2 colour print mechanism patent
	Frank Brook
	John W Deubner	Chicago USA	1899 USA	Key Recorder	A different Key Recorder patent
	W H Witham	London England	1899 USA	Photograph Recorder	An amazing invention - but too far ahead of it's time to catch on!
	A.L. Jaynes (ITR)	Buffalo USA	1902 USA	Card Recorder	One of the first ITR patents
	Arthur Henry Gledhill	Halifax England	1911 GB	Card Recorder	A very early Gledhill patent - with no mention of Frank Brook
	Arthur Lambert	Valencienne France	1907 FR	Card Recorder	One of the first French time recorder patents