Calendar of Discovery and Invention

Abstract

April .3, 1449.—In the Patent Roll, 27 Henry VI., Part 2, No. 468, is the grant of letters patent, dated April 3, 1449, to John of Utynam, born in Flanders, for the exclusive right of making coloured glass for twenty years. This is the earliest known example of an industrial monopoly patent in England or elsewhere. John came to England at the King's command to make glass for Eton College and St. Mary and St. Nicholas College, Cambridge, and because the said art had never been used in England and John intended to instruct divers lieges of the King in many other arts never used in the realm, the King granted that no liege of the King learned in such arts was to use them for a term of twenty years against the will and consent of John under a penalty of £200.