In 1728, the Legislature of Connecticut granted the exclusive right of practicing the business or trade of steel-making, provided the petitioners improved the art to any good and reasonable perfection within two years. In 1785, the State of Maryland passed an act giving to one James Rumsey the exclusive right to construct, employ and navigate boats of an improved construction, to run against the current of rapid rivers. In 1787, an act was passed vesting the exclusive right of propelling boats by steam and water for a limited time. In this year a number of acts were passed to protect inventions of machines for ruff-carding-belts, grinding flour, &c., and in 1789, one for the protection of a hand fire-engine in New Hampshire was enacted. The founders of the Constitution saw the advantages to be derived from protecting the useful arts and sciences, and we find in Article 1, Section 8, the authority and power given Congress “to promote the progress of science and the useful arts by securing, for a limited time, to authors and inventors, the exclusive right to their respective writings and discoveries,” etc.; “to make all laws which shall be necessary and proper for carrying into execution the foregoing powers.” Accordingly, Congress, in 1790, immediately after the ratification of the Constitution, found it necessary and thought it beneficial to enact a statute which authorized the issue of a patent to inventors and discoverers of any useful manufacture, engine, machine, and those who should devise any improvement thereon not before known or used. The application, consisting of a clear description of the invention, was at that time made to the Secretary-of-State, and the Attorney-General of the United States. If such application was found to be new, a patent was issued by authority of any two persons enumerated, attested by the signature of the President of the United States, who granted to the inventor the exclusive right of making, constructing, using, or vending to others to be used, the invention or discovery, for the term of fourteen years. As the nation increased in power and talent, this Act was modified as the necessities of the time required. Abuses crept in, the most noted of which was the granting and issuing of a great many patents without any record being kept to indicate that such patents were ever granted. This was caused by lack of organization and want of proper assistance. The Executive and Members of the Cabinet, having other duties to perform, neglected the proper examination of applications, and the system degenerated into as bad a one as the English.