Air-Conditioning And Refrigerating Patents

Many thousands of patents for refrigeration and air conditioning devices have been issued in the US since the early 1800's, but up to now there was no searchable list of these patents in one place.

ASHRAE Presidential Member Glenn Muffley spent most of his engineering career creating such a list, only to have his work discarded after his death. ASHRAE's Historical Committee decided to attempt to recreate the listing, expanding it to include air conditioning patents as well. This work took about ten years, and the result is being posted on ASHRAE's Web Site for the use of ASHRAE Members and researchers of industry history.

The list, in chronological order, is being posted in Adobe Acrobat format and is easily searchable by inventor or company name, title, etc. The listing covers patents issued from the early 1800's through the 1940's. Although the list does not have every AC&R Patent, it does have most of them up to the 1930's. (It can be difficult to find every patent because the US Patent Office files patents under many different classifications.)

Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Patents, Part 1
Refrigeration and Air-Conditioning Patents, Part 2

Actual copies of all of the patents in the list can be accessed at the ASHRAE library in Atlanta. Many Libraries have microfilmed copies of US Patents and copies can be obtained directly from The US Patent Office.

An example of the information contained in the list is illustrated by the following entry for the basic patent issued covering the manufacture of the CFC refrigerants:

Manufacture of aliphatic fluoro compounds