Patently Rediculous

[blueerica]

Cordless Jump Rope (http://www.patentlysilly.com/patent.php?patID=7037243)


Psychic Seeds Entertaining Growth System (http://www.patentlysilly.com/archives.php?catID=2300&subcatID=2351)


www.patentlysilly.com

I may have found a new site to make love to.

[Tramspotter]

Make love to the site eh? I hope you aren't talking about this (http://www.patentlysilly.com/archives.php?date=2007-02)then. :eek:

[Betty]

Holy Cow Tramspotter. (I don't know that I've ever used that phrase before but I think that link merits it! Just how does one invent something like that? I'd like to see their thought process... was he smokin' out one day and having sex at the same time and the light bulb went off - somehow- lol ?

[Kevy Baby]

This is a strange world

[Strangler Lewis]

I recall reading in law school how someone had patented the combover.

[Snowflake]

Well, since I'm in the patent business, I've seen more than my share of silly and stupid patents. They range from the "How to Lift A Box" patent to the one an attorney in our office wrote the application for, "musical condom" (it played among other tunes, stars and stripes forver at the climax, that must have been impressive) and everything else in between. Some patents are incredibly laughable, especially some of the older patents. Back in the day I used to keep a file of some favorites. When I left my 10 year law firm when I moved to VA, they got pitched in error. One, was a particular favorite. It was a patent for a device that would induce a criminal to confess their crime. The device was a machine that would take up one wall of a room (sort of like a one way mirror), the police would interrogate the criminal suspect, the room would be dark, and on this wall, in the machine resided a skeleton, a police detective would turn on the machine, the ghostly form would illuminate, and the result would be to scare the poor criminal into confessing his crime, the cops would book him and the world would be a safer place. I've tried periodically to find this online at the PTO without success, it's there, it was issued in 1930 and the inventor was a woman from Oakland, CA. The drawings for this patent were hysterical. I'll have to keep looking, it's a keeper.

One of the more interesting things to see were the actual patent models for inventions. Another firm I worked at briefly (my attorney was a genius, triple Ph.D., but no people skills whatever) but along the long hallway (they were in the Ferry Building, great to hear the ferries and be able to open the windows and get fresh air off the bay, heaven) they had a collection of patent models for things including a coffin with a glass aperture so you could view the dearly departed, a prosthetic arm, all sorts of machinary I could never identify, but everything worked. They were endlessly fascinating and all pre-1920.

Okay, back to the boring PCT application on my desk.

[Snowflake]

Ha! Given inspiration of LoT and the European Patent Office to search on query terms (USPTO only has full text back to 1976) and EPO you can search in the abstract (summary of the invention in quick and dirty text) and I remembered the year of the issuance of the patent, voila, I give you the invention entitled "Apparatus for Obtaining Criminal Confessions and Photographically Recording Them" invented by Helene A.Shelby. It was filed in 1927 and issued in 1930. No record of it being licensed or constructed.

Here's the first two paragraphs of the description in patent-speak:

The present invention relates to a new and useful apparatus for obtaining confessions from culprits, or those suspected of the commission of crimes, and photographically recording them, in the form of sound waves, in conjunction with their pictures, depicting their every expression and emotion, to be preserved for later reproduction as evidence against them.

The primary object of my invention is the provision of an apparatus for the creation of illusory effects calculated to impress the subject with the being of a supernatural character and so to work upon his imagination as to enable an inquisitor operating in conjunction with the recording system to obtain confessions and graphically record them by light action under the control of electric impulses governed by varying intensities of sound waves.

No doubt, a noble effort. If you are interested, PM and I can email you the PDF of the patent and the figures.

it's silly, it's dumb, it makes me happy to have found this again. :D

[Alex]

The skeleton thing is 1,749,090 (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PALL&s1=1,749,090&OS=1,749,090&RS=1,749,090). It was filed by Helene Adelaide Shelby and the patent was issued March 4, 1930.

You can view it more conveniently than at the USPTO site here (http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT1749090).

ETA: Google Patent Search is full text all the way back as well so you might find it useful.

[Snowflake]

The skeleton thing is 1,749,090 (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PALL&s1=1,749,090&OS=1,749,090&RS=1,749,090). It was filed by Helene Adelaide Shelby and the patent was issued March 4, 1930.

You can view it more conveniently than at the USPTO site here (http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT1749090).

Well, that works! Now I know about Googling patents, silly me! Honest, I didn't know!

[Alex]

According to people I know who work regularly with the commercial patent databases, Google Patents leaves something to be desired. But as a non-professional I've found it very handy.

[DreadPirateRoberts]

The skeleton thing is 1,749,090 (http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=2&f=G&l=50&co1=AND&d=PALL&s1=1,749,090&OS=1,749,090&RS=1,749,090). It was filed by Helene Adelaide Shelby and the patent was issued March 4, 1930.

You can view it more conveniently than at the USPTO site here (http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPAT1749090).

ETA: Google Patent Search is full text all the way back as well so you might find it useful.

Very cool! I found a patent by my great-great grandfather.

[Snowflake]

According to people I know who work regularly with the commercial patent databases, Google Patents leaves something to be desired. But as a non-professional I've found it very handy.

Well, I'm not a searcher, but always apreciate a silly patent. This enables me to search for more silliness.

[Snowflake]

Very cool! I found a patent by my great-great grandfather.


Hey, that is very cool!

I know in my research on Valentino, I found a design patent done by Valentino's second wife, even her biographer did not know about it, that was cool too!

[Kevy Baby]

Well, I'm not a searcher, but always apreciate a silly patent. This enables me to search for more silliness.Silly is good.

[DreadPirateRoberts]

Bob Gurr has some patents you might recognize:


http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPATD184522&id=DpRwAAAAEBAJ&dq=robert+gurr

http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPATD192932&id=z_1yAAAAEBAJ&dq=robert+gurr

http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPATD212766&id=aPF0AAAAEBAJ&dq=robert+gurr

http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPATD209579&id=pox0AAAAEBAJ&dq=robert+gurr

http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPATD215313&id=bIdrAAAAEBAJ&dq=robert+gurr

http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPATD189582&id=nnZxAAAAEBAJ&dq=robert+gurr&jtp=1

http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPATD213888&id=V3NqAAAAEBAJ&dq=robert+gurr

http://www.google.com/patents?vid=USPATD188475&id=eDJ0AAAAEBAJ&dq=robert+gurr

[flippyshark]

Wow. Bob Gurr deserves a coffee table book all his own. Theme parks wouldn't be the same without him. (I met Bob once back in the day. Very interesting guy!)

[Ghoulish Delight]

When we saw Charles Phoenix's Disneyland slideshow last year, we were treated to a wonderful surprise...Bob Gurr was in the audience. It was truly eye opening to see slide after slide of different Disneyland vehicles and hear, "Bob Gurr designed this one too," over and over. He had great stories about going to junk yards and salvaging parts from old Buicks and Chevys to piece together everything from the Autopia cars to the Monorails. He had real vision to be able to take existing forms that were recognizable in their own right and come up with something new out of them with their own unique character.

[DreadPirateRoberts]

When we saw Charles Phoenix's Disneyland slideshow last year, we were treated to a wonderful surprise...Bob Gurr was in the audience. It was truly eye opening to see slide after slide of different Disneyland vehicles and hear, "Bob Gurr designed this one too," over and over. He had great stories about going to junk yards and salvaging parts from old Buicks and Chevys to piece together everything from the Autopia cars to the Monorails. He had real vision to be able to take existing forms that were recognizable in their own right and come up with something new out of them with their own unique character.

very cool. I learned about him from his articles (http://www.laughingplace.com/News-Previous-C-GURR.asp)in laughing place.

[mousepod]

I'm surprised - not by how many cool things Bob Gurr designed - but by how little I apparently understand patent law. Why did WED allow an individual's name on a patent (I note that it does say "Assignor to Wed Enterprises") - do they still do that? How does patent for a design differ from copyright on, say, a show script?

[Ghoulish Delight]

I don't know any details, but I do see a lot of patents get awarded to software and hardware engineers in my company. While the IP does belong to the company, those that develop the patentable innovation are credited by name on the patent. So that much continues to be standard practice.

[Snowflake]

I'm surprised - not by how many cool things Bob Gurr designed - but by how little I apparently understand patent law. Why did WED allow an individual's name on a patent (I note that it does say "Assignor to Wed Enterprises") - do they still do that? How does patent for a design differ from copyright on, say, a show script?

Design patent is for the design (simply, a box with 8 sides, a keyring, the style of a lamp, a piece of jewelry)

Utility patent is for the machine, the microbe, the parts that make the engine work, in simple terms. The widget that makes the world go round.

In US patent practice applications are filed in the name of the inventors, and then are (typically) assigned to a company. Most inventors work for a company and part of their contract is to assign the rights to the objects they're paid to invent back to the company. As an employee of WED, Bob Gurr would assign the rights to the invention to the company.

Sole inventors are rarer these days simply due to the sheer cost of filing and prosecuting patent applications, not only in the US but worldwide to protect the right to the invention. It's not small spuds. But, if you're lucky and have a patent application or issued patent someone would like to license, then you can make major moola. Then there are guys like Lemmelson, google Lemmelson, and you will get loads of info, who sued for his VHS system patent. Of course, I'm simplifying, he was a prolific inventor and a gazollionare by the time he died, and his foundation is still going strong. Still suing as far as I know.

Anyway, attorneys can explain far better than I and the ins and outs of the law.

[Prudence]

In US patent practice applications are filed in the name of the inventors, and then are (typically) assigned to a company. Most inventors work for a company and part of their contract is to assign the rights to the objects they're paid to invent back to the company. As an employee of WED, Bob Gurr would assign the rights to the invention to the company.


Yup - the inventor has to be a person (or people, for joint ownership) who make an oath of some sort as part of the application. A company doesn't invent. A person can be hired by a company to invent and can own the IP associated with the invention, but the actual inventing was done by people.

I don't really know much about design patents - we never seem to cover that topic. But patents have to be related to something useful, and copyrights don't.

[mousepod]

Thanks for the clarification, Pru.