Let's take a look at the world in the year Merchant & Gould was founded: 1900.

Inventions, Innovation, & Industry

In 1900, just over 2,500 automobiles had been manufactured. Two bicycle mechanics, brothers Wilbur and Orville Wright, were mastering the problems of flight control while building gliders. Within two years, the ingenious pair had designed and built an efficient-enough propeller along with a light internal-combustion engine to achieve the first controlled and sustained, powered flight.

At the turn of the twentieth century, one in ten American homes had a telephone. Willis Carrier built the first air conditioner in 1902. Farmers thought their livelihoods would be obsolete with the industrialization of farming. The first electrified factory was built in 1894, and by 1901 there were nearly 400,000 industrial motors at work.

At the United States Patent Office in 1900, inventors and their representatives filed 41,980 applications for patents.

Every firm traces its history to a critical event

In 1900, Frank D. Merchant saw the potential existing in the field of patent and trademark law and established a family-owned firm that has grown to become synonymous with the words integrity, wisdom, and innovation. Attorney John D. Gould joined Frank's two sons, Harvey and Ralph Merchant, in 1954 on a two month trial basis. He remained with the firm until his death in 2015. Under Mr. Gould's past headship and now under Managing Director Christopher J. Leonard's leadership, Merchant & Gould has grown to become one of the largest intellectual property law firms in the United States.