LIST OF RELEVANT
PATENTS FOR PIPETTES
3013435 December 1961 Rodrigues
3091124 May 1963 Hindman
3122280 February 1964 Goda
3166938 January 1965 Weyrauch
3244009 April 1966 Tietje
3248950 May 1966 Pursell
3261509 July 1966 hevell
3302462 February 1967 Pursell
3343539 September 1967 Moorhouse
3494201 February 1970 Roach
3498135 March 1970 Seitz
3506164 April 1970 Weichselbaum
3591056 July 1971 Griffin
3606086 Sept.1971 Drummond
3613952 October 1971 Gillmont
3646817 March 1972 Hinchman
3656351 April 1972 Razak
3675492 July 1972 Tejera
3741732 June 1973 Stanfield
3757585 September 1973 Heller
3760639 September 1973 Sokol
3766784 October 1973 Walker
3766785 October 1973 Smernoff
3779083 December 1973 Ayres
3783696 January 1974 Coleman
3786683 January 1974 Berman
3805998 April 1974 Croslin
3809297 May 1974 Poulten
3810391 May 1974 Suovaniemi
3815790 June 1974 Allen et al.
3827305 August 1974 Gilson
3834590 September 1974 Robinson
3853012 December 1974 Scordato
3855867 December 1974 Roach
3855868 December 1974 Suovaniemi
3882729 May 1975 Roach
3905232 September 1975 Knute
3918308 November 1975 Reed
3933048 January 1976 Scordato
3945254 March 1976 Rebold
3952599 April 1976 Ayres
3975960 August 1976 Croslin
3991617 November 1976 D'Autry
4009611 March 1977 Koffer
4016765 April 1977 Lee
4020698 May 1977 D'Autry
4023716 May 1977 Shapiro
4036064 July 1977 Hydo
4041764 August 1977 Sabloewski
4054062 October 1977 Branham
4058370 November 1977 Suovaniemi
4072247 February 1978 Yamazaki
4128009 December 1978 D'Autry
4151750 May 1979 Suovaniemi et al.
4187724 February 1980 Citrin
4283950 August 1981 Tervamaki
4779467 October 1988 Rainin et al.
4933291 June 1990 Daiss et al.
5055408 October 1991 Higo et al.
5057950 October 1991 Torti et al.
5075079 December 1991 Kerr et al.

HISTORY OF PIPETTING

The History of Pipetting can be traced back through Patent applications on the US Patent database. The history of pipetting shown here is an accumulation of information derived from personal,knowledge, interviews and Patents.

There are hundreds of thousands of scientists, laboratory technicians, students and school children who have held a pipette in their hand on many occasions and some who use them every single day of their working lives. There is also a multi-million dollar industry supporting this market and many people who live and breathe the subject.

You can mention a pipette to almost anybody with an education and a look of wonderful nostalgia will come over their face, they will then promptly hold their thumb and forefinger together and squeeze gently! Most will have no idea that this subset of scientific tools goes back over 150 years, is the tip of a proverbial development iceberg which has now graduated to the world of microchips and big business.

Pipettes like many inventions rely on creative people to develop ideas and manufacturers to implement them. The pipette is no different, although for such a humble device, the business of supplying pipettes has been fraught with litigation and dispute, both on product performance, design and functionality.

This document attempts to clarify the claims made by ndividuals and companies and highlight the unknown history of these widely used tools. You may think that the unit you use every day is made by the company whose name is printed on the side  of it and the internal mechanisms are also their design. Many companies howeverlabel products, license technology, borrow  ideas or simply resell other companies products. This industry, like any other, is fiercely competitive and new advances  are jealously guarded and litigated over. The simple locking mechanism in that German pipette may have been licensed by a Finnish company, or that popular design you have bought from a major distribution chain may have been made in Poland by another company! All however have the same basic concepts and foundations and the same evolutionary start!

There have been lots of attempts to provide a definitive history of the handheld laboratory pipette and as any scientist would expect, evidence is necessary to prove a hypothesis. We have thereforeused the US patents database to validate any facts. We have not used any local patent applications which may have had priorart as this task may well have taken a millennium to authenticate but as any businessman worth his salt will tell you that the US market is the single biggest and the products you use today have often been patented there first. There is certainly prior art in Finland and Germany on
certain elements of this subject, but dates are closely aligned to the USA patents.

WHERE DID IT ALL START?

The simple answer is a long time ago. The use of fluids in scientific research and applications has always been necessary  and many tools have been used in this environment, from the ubiquitous graduated test tubes to nanodrop robots.

From what we can ascertain however the humble pipette's life starts in the 1800's. Official records from the US patent office reach back as far as 1790, with over 20,000 records including the word "pipette" up until recent times. The vast majority have little to do with hand held devices and purely cite the word. Many are related to automated instruments and areas of industry not relevant to this text.

The earliest patent record we could  find however, that is relevant, is from 1925,filed in 1924 for a pipette which dilutes blood for sugar testing. There are no mechanical elements attached to this device, so health and safety were of no concern then, just attach the sharp end to the patient and suck!

If you would like to read more about the history of pipetting then please pipetteuk.com to see more.