Innovation nation: From the airplane to the lightbulb big, bright ideas have always thrived in the Land of the Free

On July 31, 1790, President George Washington affixed his elegant signature to a single piece of parchment.The short document credited Samuel Hopkins of Philadelphia with having “discovered an Improvement, not known or used before,” in the production of potash, a chemical useful in making fertilizer and other products.

The statement granted Mr.Hopkins “the sole and exclusive Right and Liberty of using, and vending to others the said Discovery” for a period of 14 years.Thus was issued the first US patent.

Attorney General Edmund Randolph and Secretary of State Thomas Jefferson were also on hand to sign the document.Among all the weighty duties facing Washington and his cabinet, protecting the interests of a little-known inventor might strike us today as rather mundane.

But America’s founders believed that guarding the rights of innovators was a crucial role of government.Ratified just two years earlier, the US Constitution directed Congress to “promote the progress of Science and Useful Arts” by securing such rights for inventors and writers.It was “the first time in history that a country’s founding document expressly authorize[d] the government to protect patents and copyrights,” writes Antonin Scalia Law School professor Adam Mossof.

The idea of protecting inventors’ rights wasn’t new.It had been part of English law for centuries.

There, however, patents were granted at the pleasure of the king.In contrast, the newly united former colonies awarded patents based on the originality of the invention, not the whims of royalty.The United States’ uniquely democratic approach to intellectual property set off a chain reaction that drives innovation to this day.

By 1836, nearly 10,000 inventions had received patent protection; that number passed the 1 million mark in 1911.Today, more than 12 million US patents are on the books.America is the land of invention.

Not surprisingly, many early patents involved agriculture.Cyrus McCormick’s me...