  America’s First Patent Thicket: Sewing Machine War of the
1850s  Written by: Adam Mossoff Professor of Law, George Masson
University School of Law Posted: May 3, 2012 @ 1:07 pm  Tell A
Friend!   Howe's U.S. Patent No. 4750 on America's first
patented sewing machine.  The Sewing Machine Combination was the
commercial trust that was responsible for the mass production of
the sewing machine in the nineteenth century—a commodity that
was fundamental to the success of the Industrial Revolution in
America. The Sewing Machine Combination was also the first
patent pool in American history, operating successfully from its
formation in 1856 until its last patent expired in 1877. As
such, the Sewing Machine Combination has been a topic of study
by some historians, but the provenance of this important patent
pool has long been forgotten. One finds only scattered
references to the inception of the Sewing Machine Combination in
what contemporaneous newspapers called the ?Sewing Machine War.
Yet the details of this confli