Abraham Lincoln and patents

An article from the 2006 Smithsonian is re-appearing on the net, including the text


One aspect of this multidimensional man that probably doesn't occur to anyone other than avid readers of Lincoln biographies (and Smithsonian) is that of inventor. Yet before he became the 16th president of the United States, Lincoln, who had a long fascination with how things worked, invented a flotation system for lifting riverboats stuck on sandbars.


(...)
Lincoln's patent, No. 6,469, was granted on May 22, 1849, for a device for "Buoying Vessels Over Shoals," when he was back in Springfield practicing law after one term as an Illinois congressman in Washington. His idea, to equip boats with inflatable bellows of "india-rubber cloth, or other suitable water-proof fabric" levered alongside the hull, came as a result of river and lake expeditions he made as a young man, ferrying people and produce on the Mississippi and the Great Lakes.


Link: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/history/abraham-lincoln-only-president-have-patent-131184751/?no-ist

There is no mention of Abrahma Lincoln as a patent litigator, but see IPBiz:

http://ipbiz.blogspot.com.es/2008/03/abraham-lincoln-as-patent-litigator.html

And, Daniel Webster litigated on behalf of Charles Goodyear.