Autopen
Encyclopedia
History
The first autopens were developed by an Englishman named John Isaac HawkinsJohn Isaac Hawkins
John Isaac Hawkins was an inventor who practiced civil engineering.He was known as the co-inventor of the ever-pointed pencil, an early mechanical pencil, and of the upright piano.-Life:...
. Hawkins received a United States patent
Patent
A patent is a form of intellectual property. It consists of a set of exclusive rights granted by a sovereign state to an inventor or their assignee for a limited period of time in exchange for the public disclosure of an invention....
for his device in 1803. In 1804, Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson
Thomas Jefferson was the principal author of the United States Declaration of Independence and the Statute of Virginia for Religious Freedom , the third President of the United States and founder of the University of Virginia...
began using the device extensively. This early device was known at the time as a polygraph (an abstracted version of the pantograph
Pantograph
A pantograph is a mechanical linkage connected in a special manner based on parallelograms so that the movement of one pen, in tracing an image, produces identical movements in a second pen...
) and bears little resemblance to today's autopens in design or operation. The modern autopen called the Robot Pen was developed in the 1930s and became commercially available in 1937 (used as a storage unit device, similar in principle to how vinyl records store information) to record a signers signature. A small segment of the record could be removed and stored elsewhere to prevent misuse. The machine would then be able to mass produce a template signature when needed.
Autopen users
Harry Truman is believed to have been the first United States PresidentPresident of the United States
The President of the United States of America is the head of state and head of government of the United States. The president leads the executive branch of the federal government and is the commander-in-chief of the United States Armed Forces....
to use the autopen as a way of responding to mail and signing checks. Autopen devices are used today by politicians and fundraisers to sign letters to constituents written by administrative assistants and clerical staff, and by other famous people to sign autographs. A company named Studio Fanmail uses autopens to reproduce celebrity autographs onto pictures of celebrities.
On May 27, 2011, U.S. President Barack Obama became the first president to use an autopen to sign a bill into law. While visiting France, he authorized the use of an autopen to create his signature which signed into law an extension of three key provisions of the USA PATRIOT Act
USA PATRIOT Act
The USA PATRIOT Act is an Act of the U.S. Congress that was signed into law by President George W. Bush on October 26, 2001...
. Republican leaders have raised questions as to whether this use of the Autopen meets the Constitutional requirement for signing a bill into law.
Mechanism
The first step in using an autopen machine is to have a metal "matrix" of the signature made. This matrix is then loaded into the machine and signing can then commence.Types
Further developing the class of devices known as autopens, Canadian author Margaret AtwoodMargaret Atwood
Margaret Eleanor Atwood, is a Canadian poet, novelist, literary critic, essayist, and environmental activist. She is among the most-honoured authors of fiction in recent history; she is a winner of the Arthur C...
created a device called the Longpen
LongPen
The LongPen is a remote signing device conceived by writer Margaret Atwood. It allows someone to write in ink anywhere in the world via tablet PC and the internet....
, which allows audio and video conversation between the fan and author while a book is being signed remotely.