Takeaway: U.S. Patent and Trademark Office reaches new milestone in American innovation and ingenuity.
On May 11, 2021, the USPTO issued U.S. Patent No. 11,000,000. This impressive landmark comes just three years after the USPTO issued patent number 10,000,000 in March of 2018.
The U.S.’s 11 millionth patent is one of a family of inventions granted to Saravana Kumar and Jason Diedering of 4C Medical Tech.
This utility patent “provides methods, devices and systems for delivering, positioning, and/or repositioning an expandable prosthetic heart valve in a patient’s heart chamber.”
As a short background to the U.S. Patent system, the first numbered patent was granted to Senator John Ruggles on July 13, 1836, after the creation of the Patent Act of 1836, for a traction wheel for steam locomotives.
Prior to this Patent Act, patents were only identifiable by inventor and issue date. Sadly, a few months after the Patent Act of 1836 was enacted, a catastrophic fire at the Patent Office destroyed almost all of the records and models related to patents issued prior to the Act.