Hymen Lipman patents pencil with attached eraser (1858–1875)

Hymen Lipman, an American stationer and inventor, registered the first patent for a pencil with an attached eraser on March 30, 1858. Born in Jamaica and settled in Philadelphia, Lipman later sold the patent rights, which were eventually invalidated by the Supreme Court in 1875.

Episodes

Background and detail

Background. Hymen Lipman was born in Kingston, Jamaica, on March 20, 1817, to Lewis Lipman, an English merchant. He immigrated to the United States around 1829, arriving and settling in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. Pencils are writing or drawing implements with a solid pigment core in a protective casing, creating marks by physical abrasion.

Patent Registration. On March 30, 1858, Lipman received the first patent for attaching an eraser to the end of a pencil. This innovation combined known elements into a single tool, though the specific legal status of this combination was later contested in federal courts.

Legal Aftermath. In 1862, Lipman sold his lead-pencil and eraser patent to Joseph Reckendorfer for $100,000. Reckendorfer then sued a pencil manufacturer for infringement, named as Faber in one account and Faber-Castell in another. In 1875, the US Supreme Court ruled against Reckendorfer, declaring the patent invalid because the invention was a combination of two already known things with no new use.

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Sources

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