George Baldwin Selden

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George Baldwin Selden about 1871

George Baldwin Selden ( September 14, 1846 in Clarkson , New York ; † January 17, 1922 in Rochester , New York) was a patent attorney, inventor and manufacturer of automobiles and commercial vehicles . His 1895 patent for automobiles with internal combustion engines was the starting point for a long-standing historic legal dispute with lasting consequences for the US automotive industry.

family

origin

The father: Judge Henry Rogers Selden (1805–1885)
Selden's childhood home in Rochester today. The Road Engine was built in the now demolished barn behind the house in 1877–1878 . The address today is 3-5 Selden Street .

George Baldwin Selden's ancestors were among the Puritans around Thomas Hooker , who founded the Hartford colony in 1636 in what is now the state of Connecticut . He was one of five children (according to another source: 12) of Henry Rogers Selden (1805–1885) and Laura Anne Baldwin . His father was a prominent attorney , judge , and politician in the Republican Party ( Lieutenant-Governor of New York State from 1857–1858) and a possible candidate for vice president in 1864 , which he declined. The father gained national fame in 1873 with the - unsuccessful - defense of a prominent suffragette , Susan Brownell Anthony (1820-1906), who had participated in a presidential election, citing the constitution , even though women's suffrage and suffrage did not yet exist.

early years

George Selden matriculated at the University of Rochester for a short time . A passionate horseman, he volunteered for the 6th Cavalry of the Union Army in the Civil War of 1861-1865. His possibly romantic notions ended after a riding accident. He then served in the Hospital Corps , also for a short time . Under unclear circumstances, his father obtained his release from service. George Selden enrolled at Yale University in 1865 at his father's request . He studied law without enthusiasm and for the following two years took technical courses at the affiliated Sheffield Scientific School . In 1869 his father brought him back and he matriculated again at Rochester University to complete his law degree.

It seems that he was already thinking about horseless vehicles in the late 1850s. However, he considered the steam drive, which was widespread at the time, to be unsuitable because of the large quantities of coal and water that had to be carried along. As early as 1869 he developed a device with which rubber tires could be mounted on carriage wheels. The invention was patented. However, due to a lack of funds, it was not further developed. Although his father allowed him to work in a workshop on his parents' property, he refused any financial support. Throughout his life, George complained that his income, even later as a patent attorney, was never sufficient for extensive mechanical studies.

Career

In 1871 he was admitted to the bar in New York State and joined his father's law firm. He married Clara Drake Woodruff shortly thereafter . The family had four children. Selden remained an amateur inventor. In the basement workshop in his parents' house, where he lived with his family until the late 1870s, he constructed, among other things, a typewriter and a machine for making barrel hoops .

In 1878 he opened his own law firm. His clients included the then unknown photography pioneer George Eastman , whom he represented in patent matters. Eastman worked in the same building where Selden had his office.

Selden patent

Selden Road Engine

Replica of the Selden Road engine . The engine rotating with the front axle is clearly visible. (1877–1878 or 1905)

Selden demonstrated his barrel hoop machine at the 1876 World's Fair in Philadelphia . On this occasion he got to know George Brayton 's new gas engine , which he also presented here. The Brayton engine is a two-stroke engine that uses one cylinder with a pump for compression per working cylinder and does not require spark plugs. It is a forerunner of the diesel engine.

In 1877, 12 years before the Reich patents were granted to Carl Benz and Gottlieb Daimler , he began designing a road vehicle called the Road engine . Selden's work on improving the Brayton engine was an important contribution to the development of the internal combustion engine. He managed to design the engine lighter and simpler. In December 1877 he took his plans to Frank Clement's mechanical shop in Rochester. Its design was a three cylinder with an air pump at each end of each cylinder, however only one of the cylinders was bored out in the mould. In May 1878 the engine ran, albeit not satisfactorily. With a weight of 380 lbs (172.4 kg) it made 2 bhp (1.4 kW). At least Selden now had an internal combustion engine light enough for a road vehicle. A complete vehicle was not built until years after the patent was granted. The Road engine might have been the first road vehicle with a two-stage gearbox and reverse gear . It was shifted with handwheels mounted on its own column next to the steering column . The use of a steering wheel was also a very modern solution that only became common after 1900.

Scope and History of the Selden Patent

The Selden Road engine on a drawing for patent 549.160 (1895)
Licensed manufacturers or, as here, importers, advertised in advertisements the protection from Selden patent lawsuits that only buying from a licensed company would offer. The Selden patent had a massive impact on the US auto industry.

On May 8, 1879, Selden applied for a patent for his vehicle. The application refers to an "improved", "safe, simple and cheap road locomotive, light in weight, easy to control and powerful enough to climb any ordinary grade." It includes a three-page technical description of the Selden Road engine (occasionally also Road Wagon called), construction plans and photos of a specially made model. The application and plans were signed by Selden and two witnesses, WM Rebasz, Jr. (the planer on Selden's behalf) and George Eastman , an office neighbor. The model, measuring 19.05 × 16.51 × 27.94 cm, has been preserved but was long thought to be lost.

The patent application contains six individual applications formulated in very general terms, none of which was really new on its own. So the power of the patent lay neither in the rather useless vehicle itself nor in its components, most of which were known in principle at the time. The lawyer Selden managed to get the patent office to recognize this particular combination of known components as a separate achievement on November 5, 1895 and issue a "combination patent" (patent specification no. 549,160): A car with trunk machinery and steering, a lever mechanism, engine and transmission. Whether the engine was mounted at the front (as with Selden), in the middle or at the rear, whether the vehicle had three or four wheels and how they were driven or steered was considered irrelevant in terms of patent law. Excluded were electric and steam vehicles. Accordingly, the type of drive energy was weighted higher than the type of power transmission .

Selden speculated that a market for motor vehicles would develop over time. In order for his patent to have the greatest possible effect, he repeatedly delayed the entry into force of his patent. In doing so, he took advantage of the fact that at that time subsequent processing of the application was unlimited and the registration period was extended by a further two years with each change. So it happened that in the 16½ years that the proceedings lasted in total, the files were stored with him for 15 years and 11 months; the Office, for its part, always processed its amendments within one month. In April 1895, the Patent Office put more stringent regulations into effect. Further delays could have resulted in the patent case being dropped, and Selden now let the case run its course. The patent was granted on May 28, 1895; It became legally valid with the payment of the fees, which, however, did not take place until mid-October 1895. Patent number 549,160 was finally issued on November 5, 1895.

Historical context

But it would not have been advisable to wait any longer because of the technical development. In 1887 the Foos Gas Engine Company of Springfield, Ohio had started manufacturing internal combustion engines for stationary applications , followed by Claude Sintz of Grand Rapids, Michigan and the Brennan Motor Manufacturing Company of Syracuse, New York . In 1886, almost a decade after the Selden patent application, Karl Benz received a similar patent from the German Reich for a gasoline-powered car.

The first functional cars with internal combustion and especially petrol engines were also constructed a little later in the USA, starting in 1893 by Charles and Frank Duryea and in 1894 by Elwood Haynes . In 1896 Charles Brady King , Ransom Eli Olds and Henry Ford introduced their first cars. In Chicago, a newspaper hit the nerve of the times and advertised a race for horseless vehicles for November 1895. Although there were only a handful of automobiles at the start, around 100 hopeful designers showed enough interest to register their vehicles.

There had been patent applications for similar applications in France earlier, for example in 1859 for Étienne Lenoir and in 1860 for Édouard Delamare-Deboutteville . Although Selden had begun building his road engine in 1877, he did not complete it in the time his patent application was pending. The application was based exclusively on his construction plans, the description and photos of a model. He thus applied for a patent without ever having manufactured a car.

Electric Vehicle Company

William C. Whitney in his office; around 1885
Albert Augustus Pope; around 1908

With the current patent period - at that time it was 17 years - Selden was under time pressure. On the other hand, the legal enforcement of the patent claim exceeded his financial possibilities. He soon began looking for a buyer for the patent. The only interested party was the Electric Vehicle Company (EVC) in Hartford (Connecticut) . This was founded in 1896 to build and operate electric taxis. The following year it was taken over by a consortium led by William Collins Whitney (1841-1904), Thomas Fortune Ryan (1851-1928) and Anthony Nicholas Brady (1841-1913). These were monopolists who had already invested in streetcar systems in various cities and were now trying to control the taxi business in several major US cities as well. In the press, the group became known as the Lead Trust or Lead Cab Trust (literally lead cab cartel; because of the lead-acid batteries). Later, Albert Augustus Pope (1843–1909), who already dominated the bicycle market in the USA with his American Bicycle Company (ABC), also invested. Although the EVC manufactured almost half of all horseless vehicles in the United States at the time, it fell far short of the target of an annual production of 2,000 taxis. The monopoly failed because of internal quarrels, but also because of buyer resistance to the heavy vehicles with their short range. EVC ran into financial difficulties.

The EVC and Pope also operated a joint subsidiary, Columbia Automobile Company , to manufacture passenger and light commercial vehicles, an increasing proportion of which ran on gasoline. Externally, EVC presented itself as a manufacturer, and EVC products that previously had no brand name were now marketed as Columbia .

Whitney and his partners became aware of the Selden patent more or less by accident . EVC engineer Herman F. Cuntz stumbled upon it while doing legal research prior to the introduction of the Columbia gasoline car and warned of potential problems.

Selden would have preferred a pure car manufacturer as a buyer. However, there were no other interested parties and so he sold the patent to EVC on November 4, 1899, which changed their strategy. She did not need the patent for her production, but saw it as a means to overcome her own financial bottlenecks and later to control the automobile market. For his patent, Selden received a share of the license fee of US$15 for each vehicle with a guaranteed minimum performance of US$5000 per year of term and a one-time payment of US$10,000. He was also available as a consultant.

Despite the defeat, it is believed that Selden earned several US$ 100,000 in license fees with his patent monopoly. That was a considerable fortune at the time, but little compared to the profits that the rights holders, especially the Electric Vehicle Company , made: General Motors alone paid back license fees in the amount of US$ 1 in 1909, after the first instance judgment against Ford million

Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers

George B. Selden (with hat) in his replica Road engine during a demonstration drive in connection with the Selden trial. The picture was taken in 1906. His passenger is the automobile entrepreneur and dealer Partridge Wyckoff , in the background lawyers and representatives of the ALAM. The Selden trial was one of the first in which both sides deliberately sought to influence public opinion.

A separate organization was founded to exploit the patent, the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers (ALAM), for which Selden acted in an advisory capacity. Years of litigation followed with a group of "independent" vehicle manufacturers around Henry Ford. It was not until 1911 that the universal claim was partially denied in the second instance. The dispute had enormous negative effects on the early US auto industry and was followed with great interest by the public on both sides thanks to strong media attention as well as aggressive and modern communication strategies.

By the year 1900, the number of car manufacturers had grown very rapidly. Because of Selden's procedural delays, there was a lengthy legal battle, e.g. B. with the Winton Motor Car Company in Cleveland and other automobile manufacturers, who all joined together in the "Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers" (ALAM) from 1903. From 1896 they had to pay a 1.25% royalty on the list price of every car made for the Selden patent . In 1899, Selden also sold licensing patent rights to William C. Whitney , who had electric taxi cabs manufactured by the Electric Vehicle Company , (EVC), and Selden received a $15 royalty per car and an annual fee of $5,000 . However, Selden and Whitney then worked together to collect royalties from other budding automakers. New negotiations for a 0.75% royalty on all vehicles were sold to the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers , (ALAM). Selden now founded his own car factory in Rochester, the "Selden Motor Vehicle Company" .

However, Henry Ford, owner of the Ford Motor Company and four other automakers did not agree with the Selden patent tactics and decided to file a patent infringement lawsuit against Selden and EVC. The judicial battle lasted eight years and all the newspapers reported on the trial, which ended in Selden's victory. The Selden patent decision stated that any vehicle with a petrol engine would be covered. Ford had appealed on a $350,000 bond , which he was successful on January 10, 1911. It was shown, among other things, that the delays in the manufacture of the Selden car spoke against the Selden patent in two respects. Ford's first argument related to an engine, which was not used in the patent car because it was not based on George Brayton 's system but on a spark-ignition engine . The second argument related to the barely functional car, and Ford was right on both allegations. The ongoing detailed dispute before the courts with Henry Ford had led to the invalidity of the Selden patent and had given the automotive industry a boost.

Automobile and commercial vehicle manufacturers

Now Selden concentrated on his own car production. Like any other manufacturer, he needed a Selden license. He got it by acquiring a smaller company, the Buffalo Gasoline Motor Company , which had entered into an agreement with the ALAM after being sued for license infringement. From this he formed the Selden Motor Vehicle Company in 1906 , using the existing Buffalo license. He was not involved in the construction of the Selden automobiles, and important components such as the engines were bought in. After rather sluggish sales, Selden gave up building cars in favor of trucks in 1914, for which he reorganized his company as the Selden Truck Sales Corporation . It was able to continue producing until 1930 and became part of the Bethlehem Motor Truck Company . Selden tinkered with a rotary engine in his later years .

George Baldwin Selden suffered a stroke at the end of 1921 and died as a result on January 17, 1922. He was 75 years old. Like his parents, he is buried in Mount Hope Cemetery in Rochester. In addition to his name and his biographical data, his simple tombstone shows a representation of his road engine and the inscription: "Inventor of the gasoline automobile".

appreciation

Automobile historian Thomas Bonsall called Selden "part visionary, part speculator". Accordingly, he might have become as well known as Carl Benz or Gottlieb Daimler instead if he had patented and completed his Road Engine early on. Instead, however, he preferred not to become active himself, but to wait until others wanted to market their inventions. He would have attached himself to this by legal means.

Selden later complained that he could not attract investors to his invention, despite efforts to do so. The perspective of the coolly calculating lawyer who wanted to capitalize on an invention that barely worked probably does not go far enough. However, he must have been well aware of who he was selling his patent to at the end of 1899. In addition, his connection to the patent did not end with its sale, rather he was then part of the advisory board of the owners.

sources

  • Thomas E. Bonsall: More Than They Promised: The Studebaker Story. Stanford University Press, 2000, ISBN 0-8047-3586-7 .
  • Henry Ford: My Life and Work , with the collaboration of Samuel Crowther, 18th edition, Paul List Verlag, Leipzig 1923. Only authorized German edition by Curt and Marguerite Thesing.
  • William Greenleaf: Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent , Great Lakes Books/Wayne State University Press (March 15, 2011; first edition 1955); ISBN 0-8143-3512-8 .
  • Beverly Rae Kimes : Pioneers, Engineers, and Scoundrels: The Dawn of the Automobile in America. Ed. SAE ( Society of Automotive Engineers ) Permissions, Warrendale PA, 2005, ISBN 0-7680-1431-X .
  • Beverly Rae Kimes (ed.), Henry Austin Clark, Jr.: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805–1942. 3rd Edition. Krause Publications, Iola WI, 1996, ISBN 0-87341-428-4 .
  • Axel Madsen: The Deal Maker: How William C. Durant made General Motors , John Wiley & Sons, Inc., ISBN 0-4713-9523-4 .
  • Magazine: Lastauto & Omnibus – special issue 100 years of trucks, p. 176.

literature

web links

itemizations

  1. ↑ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o Postscripts: I Invented the Automobile: The Bitter War over the Selden Patent .
  2. ↑ a b c Byers: The Selden Case .
  3. ↑ W. Greenleaf: Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent. 1955/2011; pp. 7-9.
  4. ↑ W. Greenleaf: Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent. 1955/2011; p. 35.
  5. ↑ Smithsonian institute, American History: Object NMAH_1305689; Selden Automobile Patent Model, 1879.
  6. ↑ BPM Legal: Patent Specification No. 549160 to George Selden of November 5, 1895 (PDF).
  7. ↑ Ford: Life and Work , 18th edition, pp. 70–71.
  8. ↑ a b c Bonsall: More Than They Promised: The Studebaker Story. 2000, p. 79.
  9. ↑ Kimes, Clark: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. 1996, pp. 1337-1338 (Selden).
  10. ↑ a b Greenleaf: Monopoly on Wheels: Henry Ford and the Selden Automobile Patent. pp. 40–42 (patent law).
  11. ↑ Kimes, Clark: Standard Catalog of American Cars 1805-1942. 1996, p. 144 (Brennan).
  12. ↑ Kimes: Pioneers, Engineers, and Scoundrels. 2005, pp. 49–52.
  13. ↑ a b BPM Legal: outline of the Selden patent history from a legal point of view.
  14. ↑ Second Chance Garage: The Columbia Car: Reliable, Simple to Operate and Ready for Action - To The Electric Vehicle Trust.
  15. ↑ Madsen: The Deal Maker. 1999, p. 80.
  16. ↑ findagrave.com: George Baldwin Selden.
personal data
SURNAME Selden, George Baldwin
BRIEF DESCRIPTION Selden patent
BIRTH DATE September 14, 1846
PLACE OF BIRTH Clarkson , New York
DATE OF DEATH January 17, 1922
PLACE OF DEATH Rochester , New York