First woman registered to practice before the U.S. Patent Office

In 1897, Florence King achieved a landmark distinction as the first woman registered to practice before the United States Patent Office. This achievement placed her at the forefront of a profession that was, at the time, almost entirely closed to women, both because of the technical and scientific expertise required and because of prevailing social attitudes about women's capacity for legal and technical work.

Registration before the Patent Office required not only legal knowledge but often a background in engineering, mechanics, or science sufficient to understand and draft patent claims for inventions ranging from industrial machinery to consumer products. For a woman to be admitted to this practice in the late nineteenth century represented a significant breach of professional gender barriers, opening a pathway that few women had previously been able to access.

While the exact month and day of her registration are not recorded in surviving sources, the year 1897 is consistently cited as the moment King broke into this specialized field. Her admission paved the way, at least symbolically, for the small but growing number of women who would follow her into patent law and intellectual property practice throughout the twentieth century. Modern retrospectives, including those published by intellectual property law firms during Women's History Month observances, continue to cite King's registration as a foundational moment in the history of women in IP law, even as some scholarship notes competing claims to related "firsts" among her contemporaries.