HARDING, GEORGE
George Harding
George Harding is known as the greatest U.S.
patent attorney of the late nineteenth century.
Harding was born in Philadelphia on October
26, 1827. He was the son of Jesper Harding,
publisher of the Pennsylvania Inquirer. Harding
attended public schools and graduated from the
University of Pennsylvania in 1846. After graduating,
he worked as an intern for John Cadwalader,
who later became a U.S. district judge,
before starting his own law practice.
Harding was admitted to the bar in 1849,
and elected secretary of the Law Academy of
Philadelphia the same year. Two years later he
assisted EDWIN M. STANTON in Pennsylvania v.
Wheeling & Belmont Bridge Co., 54 U.S. (13
How.) 518, 14 L. Ed. 249 (1852), before the
Supreme Court.With this case he began to gain
fame as a patent attorney.
Harding successfully represented Samuel F.
Morse in lengthy litigation over Morse’s telegraph
patent (O’Reilly v. Morse, 56 U.S. [15 How.] 62, 14 L. Ed. 601 [1854]). In this case
Morse was found to be the “true and original
inventor of the Electro-Magnetic Telegraph,
worked by the motive power of electromagnetism,
and of the several improvements thereon.”
In the Cyrus H. McCormick reaper litigation,
McCormick v. Talcott, 61 U.S. (20 How.)
402, 15 L. Ed. 930 (1858), the attorney on
retainer for defendant John Manny was ABRAHAM
LINCOLN. Harding and his associates, lead
attorneys for the defense, considered Lincoln
too inexperienced to handle the litigation but
kept him on because they needed to have a local
attorney of record. They promptly removed him
to the status of little more than an observer.Historians
report that Lincoln was devastated by the
treatment he received from the famous lawyers
from Philadelphia.
Relying on his expertise in mechanics and
chemistry, Harding became known for his
courtroom demonstrations. To explain some of
the patent issues being litigated, he would perform
chemical experiments or demonstrate
working models of the machines in question.
Some of the models he brought into the courtroom
were a miniature telephone system, a
miniature grain field and reaper, and a furnace.
In Burr v. Duryee, 68 U.S. (1 Wall.) 531, 17 L. Ed.
650 (1864), Justice ROBERT C. GRIER noted that
the “large museum of exhibits in the shape of
machines and models” brought in by Harding
were critical to giving the Court “a proper
understanding of the merits of the controversy.”
Harding was as much a showman as an orator
and was able to use humor to create interest
in patent litigation. He was listed as counsel in
over one hundred cases heard before the federal
circuit courts of appeal and the Supreme Court.
Harding retired from practice in 1897 at age
seventy. He died five years later on November
17, 1902, in New York City.
