Ford v Selden
The forgotten story about the battle for the soul of the American automobile.
ABOVE: Selden vs. Ford
In late 1909 the future of the automobile industry looked bleak. Two armies of lawyers had just finished a patent suit that had ground on for nearly six years. The results were in and the patent for the automobile had been upheld. George Selden had been named the “father” of the automobile. This placed the future of the automobile industry into the hands of a shady cabal bent on controlling the industry to suit their high-priced ideas of what an automobile should be and to squeeze every last cent they could from the patent. Their defeat of Ford and Panhard & Levassor freed up their lawyers to descend on every “unlicensed” maker in the United States and any foreign maker that dared import a car without paying the extortion fees. The Selden cabal, or the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers, A.L.A.M. for short, had even begun printing notices in newspapers threatening “difficulty” to any private citizen who purchased an unlicensed automobile.
ABOVE: (left) Detroit Free Press, July 26th, 1903. The last paragraph contains a threat directed against involvement with unlicensed cars. (right) Ford’s response came out in the Detroit Free Press two days later, July 28th, 1903.
Henry Ford and the Ford Motor Company were facing the real possibility of not only having to pay a fine for every car they had ever made but would likely find that the group they had just battled in court would not grant them a license even if they managed to pay all they owed. Things were so bad Ford contemplated selling out. The prospective buyer? William Durant of General Motors. As bad as that sounds, it got even worse when the GM board of directors determined that Ford wasn’t worth the 8 million dollar asking price and that GM didn’t need to buy, because Ford would be out of business in less than a year.
The story of how the automobile industry, managed to get itself into such an absurd predicament, is one of the most ridiculously fascinating stories in the annals of car history.
ABOVE: George B. Selden
George Baldwin Selden was born in Clarkson, NY on September 14, 1846, to Henry R. Selden and Laura Anne Baldwin. His father would become famous for defending Susan B. Anthony in 1873 after she voted unlawfully. The Selden’s moved to Rochester, New York where George would become fascinated with machinery. His father dismissed these notions and steered George down the path of studying law. This would eventually lead to George passing the New York State Bar exam in 1871.
Even though he was well on his way to becoming a successful patent attorney, he represented George Eastman in patent matters, Selden always retained his interest in machines and engines. It was shortly after viewing G. B. Brayton’s freshly patented “Ready Motor” at Philadelphia’s 1876 Centennial Exposition that George Selden had an idea. It was a simple three-act plan. Firstly, he would change something about Brayton’s design, something significant enough not to infringe upon the original design, but nothing so drastically different that Selden would have to work out actual new problems. Secondly, he would design a device that could harness the new engine’s power to propel people down the road. Lastly, and here’s the real genius of the whole plan, he would get a patent for the entire machine. That would require anyone who wanted to build a similar contraption to pay him a royalty.
Despite how hair-brained all of this sounds, it is exactly what happened. In 1878 George B. Seldon submitted an application for a 4-wheeled car that used a smaller and lighter, multiple-cylinder version of Brayton’s “Ready Motor”. He then proceeded to file 16 years' worth of amendments to his original design. He was finally granted a patent on November 5th, 1895.
ABOVE: A period advertisement for the Brayton engine.
Selden recognized that he would be unable to excise royalties from the budding automobile industry by himself. So in 1899, he licensed his patent to a company that made electric taxi cabs called the Electric Vehicle Company. The company, along with Selden, began to collect royalties from other automobile manufacturers. To bring a more legitimate face to the collection process an entity was established in 1903 called the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufactures (ALAM). Of course, not every car maker went along with the process.
On July 13, 1900, the Electric Vehicle Company filed a suit against Percy Owen and A. W. Chamberlain, New York City dealers of the Cleveland, OH-based Winton Motor Carriage Company, which was named as a co-defendant. The dealers were just the pathway to getting the Winton Company into a New York City Courtroom. The EVC knew they needed to make a spectacle of a well-established and prosperous company, if they wanted to be taken seriously as the caretakers of the automobile patent.
ABOVE: Alexander Winton
Alexander Winton immigrated to America, from Scotland, in 1884. He settled in Cleveland, Ohio, and founded a bicycle shop shortly after. In 1896 he built his first single-cylinder car. On March 1, 1897, he founded the Winton Motor Carriage Company and produced his second car shortly after. By the end of 1898 Alexander Winton had constructed and sold 22 cars. Such a high-profile company made a great first target for the EVC.
In May of 1901 two other companies sued by the EVC, the Ranlet Automobile Company, of St. Johnsbury Vermont, and the Automobile Forecarriage Company, of New York City, were forced to settle and capitulate to the Selden entity. With every small manufacturer’s capitulation, Selden gained a little more legitimacy. So by November of 1902, the Winton Company abandoned its legal defense and entered into private negotiations with the EVC in hopes of ending the costly legal process. As a condition of settling the suit, Winton had to turnover every piece of evidence they had collected and place it into the custody of Selden lawyers. This action prevented any future defendant from gaining access to information the Winton lawyers had uncovered.
During the Winton trials a group of automotive businessmen got together to help the Winton company defend itself. The group they created, The Manufacturers Mutual Association, soon realized, just like Winton, that the Selden organization was going to become the industry standard and that it would be better to control it, instead of fight it. In a tactic that the EVC had used many times in the past, the leaders threatened to put up every power they had to break the patent if the EVC didn’t go along with their proposal. After a four-day meeting held at the Manhattan Hotel the Manufacturers Mutual Association became the Association of Licensed Automobile Manufacturers, A.L.A.M.. They had presented the EVC management 3 points:
We will pay one and one-fourth percent royalty, three-fourths of one percent to the Electric Vehicle Co., and one-half of one percent into an association of our own.
This association shall say who shall or shall not be sued under the patent.
It shall say who shall be licensed and who shall not be licensed under the patent.
The EVC capitulated and the A.L.A.M. became the controlling entity for the Selden patent on March 3, 1903. Not long after its formation the A.L.A.M. would set its sights on two firms that would turn out to be made of stronger stuff than they had previously encountered.
ABOVE: A page in the July 1903 edition of “Country Life in America” magazine found the EVC (Selden patent holder) and the two week old Ford Motor Company, sharing space.
By the Summer of 1903, the A.L.A.M and unlicensed manufacturers had been waging a war in the press and newspaper advertisements. When A.L.A.M. members met in NYC in September, two makers had been singled out for their inflammatory statements. The first was the Thomas B. Jeffery & Co., makers of the Rambler car. The second was Henry Ford, of the newly formed Ford Motor Company.
Ford had two A.L.A.M. applications denied by the board. The reason given the first time was the organization didn’t think he could make this new prospect work because Ford had failed twice before. The second time he was refused due to his plans to make low-priced cars. Much has been written about Ford and his apparent magnanimity concerning his workers and his drive to create a low-priced car for the general public. That may very well have been Ford's driving passion, but not everyone shared that sentiment, and that included the voting board of the A.L.A.M.
When the NYC meeting was over, George H. Day president of the organization, told the press that they would have a major announcement in the next few weeks. Speculation was rampant over which makers the organization would come down against. Would they attempt to squash the newly organized Ford company, only four months old, or would they go after one of the largest makers of cars in the country and name Jefferey? The automotive industry held its breath until October 22, 1903. George B. Selden, on behalf of the A.L.A.M., filed suit against the Ford agent in NYC, C.A. Duerr & Company, and Ford Motor Company of Detroit, MI for infringing his 1895 patent.
The six years that followed are an indictment of just how insane legal proceedings were in the early 20th Century. By 1904 the suit involving Ford was combined with four other Selden cases before the New York Courts. One of these cases involved an importer, John Wanamaker, who sold Renault cars in the US, and a case that was filed in December of 1903 against the French automobile makers of Panhard & Levassor.
Testimony in the cases was taken in New York City, Ithaca, Rochester, Philadelphia, Reading, Boston, Providence, Cleveland, Lansing, and Detroit. In the Ford case alone 42 witnesses were called for the complaints and 40 for the defence. Testimony was required to be taken in front of court personnel, but the court representative played no part in what was discussed or how it was recorded. Testimony was largely gathered in case it might be useful for the legal team to refer back to it.
ABOVE: Selden’s prototype
Two prototype cars were constructed by the Selden side of the 1895 patent. Neither car operated very well, but they didn’t have to. They only had to demonstrate that George Selden had been the first to construct a car that could work. At least that’s how the complainant side saw it. The defense side argued that the car Selden patented bore no resemblance to the period automobile. Additionally, the two-cycle Braydon engine that Selden had modified wasn’t the design that current automobiles were using and had never been. Cars of the period and, importantly before 1895, had been modifications of a so-called Otto Engine, or 4-cycle engine. The Ford defense team constructed a 4-cycle engine that consisted of parts and theory that existed before 1877 when George Selden first filed for his patent.
After five years and 11 months, those involved met in court on May 28, 1909. The hearing lasted for 6 days and Judge Hough issued his findings on September 15, 1909. In his findings the judge not only upheld the patent, but he referred to George B. Selden as the father of the automobile. Such was the state of affairs in the automotive world in late 1909.
Even though Ford was desperate enough to consult with GM, the public persona of the Ford Motor Company was one of total confidence in the appeals process. The appeals trial started on November 22, 1910, and was presided over by three judges. Both Ford and the Selden organization had retained new attorneys for the appeal and it was this changing of the guard that placed one of the most important, but overlooked facts in the trail in the spotlight.
ABOVE: Sir Dugald Clerk
Dugald Clerk was widely considered the foremost expert on combustion engines at the time. He had written numerous books on the subject and had been used in English patent cases as an expert witness. The Selden organization had even brought him over to get testimony concerning the Ford suit. The previous judge cited Sir Clerk’s testimony as influential in his decision to uphold the patent. A few weeks before the trial Frederic R. Coudert, attorney for Panhard & Levassor, found himself seated in the waiting room of Ford attorney Samuel R. Betts. He happened to notice a handsomely bound book on the table in front of him. It was a set of proofs for Dugald Clerk’s most recent edition of his book on internal combustion engines. When Coudert turned to the index he was surprised to see that Selden's name wasn’t mentioned. Furthermore, Selden’s name did not appear a single time in the book’s section on the history of the gasoline engine. Shockingly, Clerk had even admitted that the modern motor car could not be traced to any single patent.
Armed with this newfound revelation Coudert pointed out during the trial that an enormous amount of faith had been placed in the testimony given by Dugald Clerk, but when the esteemed scholar wasn’t being paid by the Selden organization he, didn’t even give the “Father of the Automobile” a footnote in his book. Coudert then summed up the whole tragic event:
“A powerful corporation, or aggregation of corporations owning the flimsiest kind of patent can easily render it far too expensive a luxury to litigate. Few automobile owners could be found to hesitate between the alternative of a $500 license or a $50,000 lawsuit. Knowledge of human nature too easily indicates the answer to this dilemma.”
ABOVE: The 1911 A.L.A.M. banquet was held 3 days after the Selden patent was struck down. That’s a ballroom filled with disappointed aristocrats.
It was the opinion of most at the time that it would probably take several months for a verdict to be reached, but to everyone’s surprise, a verdict was delivered on January 9, 1911. The Selden patent was struck down:
“A patent is granted for solving a problem, not for starting one,” Noyes insisted. “Its description must explain the invention itself, the manner of making it, and the mode of putting it in practice. In the absence of knowledge upon these points the invention is not available to the public without further experiments and further exercise of inventive skill.” “...but any contention that a motor vehicle constructed by the patentee according to the teachings of the patent operated so successfully as to demonstrate that Seldon had solved a great problem and is entitled to the status of a pioneer inventor is, we think, without foundation.”
The patent was broken. Ford and the French makers were victorious. The full capability for auto production in the US was to be unleashed. In the United States, the future of the automobile would be one of simplicity and public demand over needless complexity and aristocratic sensibilities.
