The Thomas A. Edison Papers Digital Edition

This folder contains correspondence to and from Edison's patent attorneys and agents, along with other documents relating to domestic and foreign patent applications, patent litigation, and other patent matters. Included are letters pertaining to patents for the electric lamp, the electric railway, the electric battery, the phonograph, the kinetograph, the kinetoscope, and ore milling machinery. Many of the letters are from the law firm of Dyer & Seely. There are also numerous letters by attorney Sherburne B. Eaton, as well as reports by Eaton to the Patent Litigation Committee, which was responsible for reviewing the status of pending interferences. At the end of the folder is a printed copy of the U.S. Patent Office's Revised Classifications of Subjects of Invention, with annotations by Edison.

Approximately 70 percent of the documents have been selected. The following categories of documents have not been selected: routine correspondence about patent interferences and renewals, application fees, taxes, and other routine transactions; letters of transmittal and acknowledgement.