* Note - this turned out not to be as simple as I imagined at 4 AM this morning. But I'll revisit to plug in stick figure cartoons to make the wire analogy easier to follow.
Metal Wire manufacturing was patented in England in 1565, during the reign of Queen Elizabeth.
What's useful to understand about the difference in copyright and patent law is how much of the precedent involves the science and applied engineering of metal refining. Mining metal ores, and refining them in furnaces, was long established (think of the Iron Age and Bronze Age), and no one could successfully patent the extraction of ore and manufacture of metal.
They could, however, patent unique methods and improvements in furnaces... one of which resulted in the 16th century in making metal so refined that it remained useful even when it was made very, very thin. Wire was very high tech, back in Queen 'Liz's period. The Tech Sector of the middle ages - that era's valedictorians - were adept at making metal into weapons and useful items in commerce. It also establishes an interesting string to follow for electric appliances, electronics, internet cable, etc. But I digress into the present.
Author: Viscount James Bryce
Author: Frederic William Maitland
Select Essays in Anglo-American Legal History, by various authors, compiled and edited by a committee of the Association of American Law Schools, in three volumes (Boston: Little, Brown, and Company, 1909). Vol. 3.
Nos. XIII, XIV. 1565. Sept. 17. Two licenses to Wm. Humfry and Christopher Shutz to dig (1) for the Lapis Calaminaris, the manufacture of brass and iron wire and battery wares, (2) for tin, lead, and other ores. These grants covered geographically those parts of England not included in Houghstetter’s patents and the Alum patent of De Vos. Calamine or zinc carbonate is an essential in the manufacture of latten or brass, which it was proposed to use in casting ordnance (S. P. Dom. Eliz. vol. 8, No. 14). The mineral was discovered in Somersetshire in 1566, and the first true brass made by the new process was exhibited in 1568. The patentees also erected at Tintern the first mill for drawing wire for use in wool-carding. In 1568 the Company was incorporated by Charter as the ‘Company of the Mineral and Battery Works,’ and remained under practically the same management as that of the Society of the Mines Royal (Stringer, Opera Mineralia Explicata). In 1574, and again in 1581, the assignees of the patent obtained an injunction against several owners of lead mines in Derbyshire for using certain methods of roasting lead ores in a furnace worked by the foot blast and other instruments invented by Humphrey after the date of his patent. The Court of Exchequer ordered models to be made, and after repeated adjournments a Commission was appointed to investigate ‘the using of furnaces and syves for the getting, cleansing, and melting of leade Ower at Mendype, and the usage and manner of the syve’ (Exchequer Decrees and Orders). The depositions in this case are still preserved, but it is impossible to trace the history of the case to its completion. Coke informs us that as regards the use of the sieve, the patent was not upheld on the ground of prior user at Mendip. It is a peculiarity of the grant that it covered all subsequent inventions of the patentees in this particular branch of metallurgy. The hearth was invented after the date of the patent, and one of the questions to be decided was whether a subsequent invention could be covered by letters patent or no. See also Hyde Price, pp. 55-60.
