On September 30, 1862, Theodore Ruggles Timby. received U.S. Patent No. 36353 on “a revolving tower for defensive and offensive warfare, whether placed on land or water.”
John Ericsson incorporated Timby’s design when building the ironclad ship, Monitor, the world’s first turret battleship. Timby was paid a royalty for the use of his patent. The great military value of this invention was proven in wartime, and it was soon adopted by other nations.
On September 30, 1890, Thomas Edison received a series of patents on his photograph, including U.S. Patent No. 437,423 on a Phonograph:
U.S. Patent No. 437,424 on a Photograph, 437,425 on a Photograph Recorder, U.S. Patent No. 437,426 on a Photograph, U.S. Patent No. 437,427 on a Method of Making Phonogram Blanks, and U.S. Patent No. 437,429 on a Photogram Blank.
On September 29, 2009, U.S. Patent No. 7,596,466 issued to Keizo Ohta, on an INCLINATION CALCULATION APPARATUS AND INCLINATION CALCULATION PROGRAM, AND GAME APPARATUS AND GAME PROGRAM. Assigned to Nintendo Co., Ltd. the invention is the basis for the Wii gaming system:
Keizo is named as an inventor on at least 118 other patents assigned to Nintendo.
On September 28, 1999, U.S Patent No. 5,960,411, issued to Amazon.com, Inc., on a Method and System for Placing a Purchase Order Via a Communications Network — the patent on the one-click to purchase:
Amazon sued Barnes & Noble the next month, and was granted a preliminary injunction against Barnes & Noble’s Express Lane service. Barnes & Noble designed around the patent by requiring shoppers to make a second click to confirm their purchase. The lawsuit was settled confidentially in 2002.
In 2000 Amazon.com reportedly licensed the one-click ordering patent to Apple for $1 million.
On May 12, 2006, the USPTO ordered a reexamination of the one-click patent, based on a request filed by Peter Calveley. Nearly 17 months later, on October 9, 2007, the USPTO issued an office action in the reexamination which confirmed the patentability of five of the claims, but rejecting 21 others. In November 2007, Amazon amended the claims and the reexamined and amended patent was allowed. The patent expired on September 11, 2017.
On September 27, 1933, Igor Sikorsky received U.S. Patent No. 1,879,716 on an amphibian aircraft:
Seaplanes generally are powered fixed-wing aircraft capable of taking off from and landing on water. They are usually divided into floatplanes and flying boats. A float plane is, as the name implies, a plane with float. A flying boat is an aircraft where the body of the craft floats. What makes Sikorsky’s aircraft “amphibian” is that it is capable of taking off from and landing on both land and water.
Glenn Curtiss patented a float plane in 1922:
and a flying boat in 1915:
On September 26, 1933, U.S. Patent No. D90793½ issued to C.T. Coxner:
The patent is notable because of its number “90793 ½.” This is one of the rare fractional patents. The USPTO would ocassionally lose track and in order to keep the patents in the correct order would have to give a patent a fractional number. We have written about fractional patents before here: https://patents.harnessip.com/?p=2261, but today’s fractional patent is even more special because it is a fractional design patent.
Other fractional patents include 126½, RE1,217½, RE1,242½, 2,712,152½, 3,262,124½, 1400½, and one other fractional design patent: D1093½
On September 25, 1962, U.S. Patent No. 3,055,113, on a Tracing Device — what was commercialized as the Etch-A-Sketch:
In an odd coincidence, exactly eleven years later, on September 25, 1973, U.S. Patent No. 3,760,505 issued on a Tracing Device — covering an improved case:
How much simpler things would be if we could just shake our tablets and start over, like the good old Etch-A-Sketch.
Dr. Alexander Dey received U.S. Patent No. 411586 on a Workman’s Time-Recorder — a time clock on September 24, 1889.
In Dr. Dey’s own words, the invention “consists in a novel construction and combination, with a clock, of mechanisms by means of which employés of shops, factories, and other establishments may be enabled to record the time of their entering and leaving their place of business, and thus save the extra expense of watchmen or time keeper’s usually employed for the aforesaid purpose.”
Dr Alexander Dey was educated at Aberdeen and Cambridge Universities. He worked as an inspectors of schools in Scotland from 1873 to 1903. As a side hustle he invented the time recorder, He and his brother John Dey formed the Dey Patents Company in Syracuse New York in 1893, which eventually became the Dey Time Register Company around 1900. Dr Alexander Dey moved to Syracuse in 1903 to work full time on his inventions. The brothers’ company was acquired by the International Time Recording Company four years later in 1907. In 1911, International Time Recording Company merged with two other firms and became the Computing-Tabulating-Recording Company, later renamed International Business Machines, or IBM.
On behalf of everyone who has ever had to punch a time clock, thank you?
On September 23, 1934, U.S. Patent No, 1,776,637 issued to Johannes Ostermeier on a Flash Lamp.
A fixture in photography, for decades, flash bulbs have been replaced by electronic flashes, and supplanted first by faster films and more recently by digital photography. Important in its time, other inventors and the march of time, obsoleted this technology, as they do to most technologies.
On this date in 1859, George B. Simpson received U.S. Patent No. 25532 for his “electroheater”.
This was the first patent on an electric range, The range was powered by battery, and as the patent explained, could be used to “warm rooms, boil water, [and] cook victuals.”
The electric range was important invention because it gives house hunters something to complain about when touring houses on TV.