Maybe in 1912 https://patents.google.com/patent/US1059545

It's literally the opposite of what patents were supposed to protect.

They are trying repackage an old technology they did not create and are threatening to sue everyone else making it. This product already existed before these "inventor" were even born. The original innovator who made this product already profited from it and are long gone from the market.

It did, from 1912-1930.

A Chinese machinist is already selling these on Alibaba while the American machinist attempts to repatent something invented a century ago.

One wants to produce a tool that helps others make cool stuff, one wants to rip off an inventors design to try to pass it off as his own.

This is everything the patent system is supposed to protect AGAINST. Differences in societal values I guess.