In a quiet ceremony in Washington, D.C., the one millionth patent was awarded by the U.S. Patent Office on Tuesday, 8 August 1911. Frank Halton of Cleveland received the patent for an improved automobile tire. As William Taft noted in the August issue of Scientific American, "It was fitting that this patent, in itself a monument to progress, should have been awarded to an improvement on the automobile, for there is probably no single recent invention which has done so much to mark American progress or to show the world the prosperity of the United States." Patents had been granted since the beginning of the Republic, but few were granted in the early years. In 1790, for example, only three patents were issued — and all were signed by President George Washington. Before the system for granting patents was overhauled in the mid 1830s...