Few things start a day off worse than sleeping through your morning alarm, or hitting snooze until it is too late. Oddly enough, this problem was solved 132 years ago today by George Q. Seaman’s Time Alarm Bed, which as patented on July 19, 1892, as U.S. Patent No. 479307:
Mr. Seaman explained that “It is well known that the ordinary alarm-clock often fails of its purpose in waking people or at least in compelling them to get up; and the object of my invention is to produce a bed and attachments therefor which will overcome this difficulty and which at any required time will actually eject the occupant of the bed, so that the said occupant will not only be awakened, but must necessarily arise.”
Of course, ejecting the occupant is a bit extreme. It seems that oversleeping was a problem in 1892, because earlier that year another inventor, Samuel Applegate, obtained U.S.Patent No. 256,265 on a Device for Waking Persons from Sleep. Applegate’s device drops sixty blocks of light wood or cork on the face of the sleeping person:
Not surprisingly, being dumped out of bed (as Mr. Seaman proposed) or smacked in the face with 60 wood/cork blocks (as Mr. Applegate proposed), did not stand the test of time, and the urgent trill of a cell phone is what gets most of us going in the morning
On July 16, 1969, Apollo XI launched, carrying Neil A. Armstrong, Edwin E. Aldrin, Jr., and Michael Collins, to the moon. It should be no surprise that a lot of patented technology contributed to the success of the mission.
U.S. Patent No. 3,576,298 covers variant of the Command Module:
U.S. Patent No. D219690 protects the appearance of a variant of the Lunar Module:
U.S. Patent No. 3,751,727 protected a space suit:
U.S. Patent No. 3,534,406 also protected a space suit:
U.S. Patent No. D183209 issued July 15, 1958, on a Combined Rosary and Steering Wheel. The center hub is a giant St. Christopher’s Medal. Given the general disregard for traffic laws in the post-pandemic world, this was an invention that was truly ahead of its time.
On July 12, 1933, the first Dymaxion car was completed. The car, like the name, was the brainchild of R. Buckminster Fuller. The completion marked the inventor’s 38th birthday. The car was nineteen feet in length, weighed about 2,700 pounds, and cost $8,000. Fuller applied for a patent on October 18, 1933, and it issued as U.S. Patent No. 2,191,057 on December 7, 1937
The Dymaxion was unveiled on July 21 at the Locomobile plant in Bridgeport, Connecticut, to three thousand observers. Fuller himself was filmed behind the wheel of the car, which he accelerated to seventy miles per hour at Seaside Park. The mayor of Bridgeport spoke at the event, after which Fuller drove him back to city hall.
Alford F. Williams Jr., the head of the aviation products division of Gulf Refining Company, bought the prototype as a promotional vehicle for air shows. A short while later, the car was involved in a serious accident while being driven around Chicago by a Gulf employee. The prototype was severely damaged, and the driver died. Gulf repaired the vehicle, and used it at promotional events as intended. It was later sold it to an engineer who had tested it at the National Bureau of Standards. After changing hands again, it was used to advertise soft drinks, but was destroyed in 1943 when it caught fire after being refueled.
Today, only the second of three prototypes Fuller built survives, at the National Automobile Museum, in Reno, Nevada. This prototype, a small number of replicas, and photographs and newsreels are all that remain of Fuller’s vision for cars of the future.
On July 10, 1962, U.S. Patent No. 3,043,625 issued to Nils Bohlin an engineer for Volvo on the three-point safety belt:
Lap belts and even chest belts were known in the prior art. Bohlin’s invention was securing all the three points of anchoring to the vehicle itself and not to the seat. This safety belt was incorporated in Volvo cars since 1959, the year the application was filed. and Volvo made the invention freely available to other automobile manufacturers.
The idea for an air bag actually predates the three-point safety belt, the first vehicle air bag being patented by Hetrick (U.S. Patent No. 2,649,311) in 1953:
However, the first airbags were not ready for prime time. and it was not until the 1970 that airbags started to be incorporated into cars, and not until the late 1980’s and early 1990’s when they were widely available. It was not until September 1, 1998, that the Intermodal Surface Transportation Efficiency Act of 1991 finally made air bags mandatory on cars and light trucks.
On July 9, 1877, the All England Croquet and Lawn Tennis Club began its first law tennis tournament at Wimbledon. Among the winners of the Wimbledon tournament during its storied history is a least one inventor — an entrepreneur and master marketer, knowns as the Crocodile. Rene Lacoste, who won the tournament in 1925 and 1928, was the inventor on several patents, including U.S. Patent No. 3,086,777 on a Racket for Lawn-Tennis and Similar Games (one of the early steel tennis rackets):
U.S. Patent No. 3,078,098, on Tennis Rackets and the Like (which old timers may recognize as the T-2000 wielded by Jimmy Connors):
U.S. Patent No. 3,502,331 on Rackets for Tennis or Similar Games:
U.S. Patent No. 1,777,976 on a Ball Throwing Device:
U.S. Patent No. 2,927,326 on Shirts with Attached Collars:
Jean Rene Lacoste died October 12, 1996, at the age of 92, but his name lives on in the sportswear company that bears his name. The Crocodile, sportsman, entrepreneur, and inventor.
On July 7, 1936, U.S. Patent No. 2,046,343, 2,046,837, 2,046,838, 2,046,839, and 2,046,840 issued to Henry F. Phillips all relating to a “screw having a head, a tool receiving recess formed in the head of the screw, said recess comprising a plurality of radially disposed tool receiving grooves,” i.e., the Phillips head screwdriver.
However, Phillips was not the first to invent a screw with a cruciform recess — that honor belongs to J.P. Thompson, who obtained U.S. Patent No. 1,908,080 three years before Phillips:
So why is it a Phillips Head Screwdriver, not a Thompson Head Screwdriver?
Thompson approached many screw manufacturers, all of whom said his screw was impossible to manufacture because the punch needed to create the recess would destroy the screw head. Thompson concluded the whole idea was not manufacturable, confiding in an acquaintance named Henry Phillips who became intrigued with the idea and offered to buy the rights to the patent.
Phillips, an engineer, immediately formed the Phillips Screw Company revised the design and began revisiting many of the same manufacturers that had previously rejected Thompson. Finally, he met with success at American Screw, the nation’s largest screw manufacturer. Phillips convinced General Motors to use the screws on the 1937 Cadillacs. By 1940, 85% of the screw manufacturing companies had a license to produce the Phillips screw recess design.
This is another lesson in successful inventing: Not only do you have the envision the benefits of the invention, but you have to be able to get others to envision those benefits as well.
78 years ago today, on July 5, 1946, Louis Réard introduced his two-piece swimsuit design to the press and the public at the Piscine Molitor, a popular public pool in Paris. The swimsuit was modeled by Micheline Bernardini, an “exotic dancer” who worked at the Casino de Paris, because more reputable models refused to wear the suit, which consisted of just four triangles of fabric, totalling about 30 square inches.
There had been two-piece swimsuits before. Just a few months earlier, Ii May 1946, Jacques Heim produced a two-piece swimsuit that he named the “Atome.” Heim hired skywriters to fly above the Mediterranean coast advertising the Atome as “the world’s smallest bathing suit.” Réard’s swimsuit was more daring because it was smaller, and for the first time exposed the wearer’s navel.
Réard introduced his design four days after the first test of a nuclear weapon at the Bikini Atoll on July 1, 1946. The newspapers were full of news about it and Réard wanted to capitalize on the publicity so he named is suit the “bikini.” Réard, with an obvious flair for marketing, hired his own skywriters to fly over the French Riviera advertising his design as “smaller than the smallest bathing suit in the world.” In the 1950’s Réard advertised that it wasn’t a true bikini “unless it could be pulled through a wedding ring.”
Less than two weeks from its introduction, Réard applied for French Design protection on his “Costume de bain 2 pièces.” The design was published as 31778 in Volume 374, pages 23-25, on December 17, 1946, and he received Reg. No. 35473-004.
It took a few years for society to catch up to Réard’s daring design, but by the 1960’s the bikini was mainstream. In August 1960, Brian Hyland famously sang about the “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yellow Polka Dot Bikiini.”
Réard opened a bikini shop in Paris and sold swimsuits until he retired in 1980 and moved to Lausanne, Switzerland, where he died in 1984 at the age of 87.
An interesting side note is that Louis Réard was a mechanical engineer who took over his mother’s lingerie business in about 1940 and became a clothing designer.
Today marks the 248th anniversary of the Declaration of Independence. It seems we mark the day more than the underlying event. But in the past the Declaration was more widely celebrated, including in patents.
U.S. Patent No. 8,936, which issued February 1, 1875, on a Design for Fan, that is printed, stained, embossed, or painted the coat of arms of the original thirteen Federal States, upon the lower end of a shield upon which, and above the coat of arms, is the name of one of the signers of the Declaration of Independence from the State or Colony whose coat of arms is shown upon the same shield:
U.S. Patent No. 7829 issued on November 3, 1874, on a medal that consists of “a representation on one side of said medal of Carpenter’s Hall, in the city of Philadelphia, Pennsylvania” and “representation on the other side of said medal of the signing of the Declaration of Independence of the United States of America.”
U.S. Patent No. D8000, issued January 12, 1875, on a design for a medal with “an allegorical picture of America, showing the Declaration of Independence to Britannia, and holding the American flag unfurled and about to be planted on American soil.”
U.S. Patent No. D8364 issued June 1, 1875, on a design for a Fan with “an elevation of the United States Centennial Exposition Buildling, printed or otherwise produced upon the obverse sidle of the fan,” and a reverse side containing “the names of the signers of the Declaration of Independence, with representations of foliage and of articles pertaining to industrial pursuits, and at the central upper part a medallion likeness of Washington, surrounded by the national flag and surmounted by the words “ E Pluribus Unum,” the centennial dates 1776—1876, the representation of an eagle, and of a galaxy of stars.
U.S. Patent 8581 issued August 24, 1875, on a Medal of a tree whose thirteen roots represent the original thirteen colonies of the United States, the names of which are placed upon the roots. The trunk has, at its base, the words “Declaration of Independence’ around the date 1776, and the word “Constitution” along its length upward. The eighteen branches represent the eighteen administrations, which are indicated by the names of the Presidents of the United States thereupon. Upon the foliage the names of the thirty-seven States and twelve Territories now comprising the Union are written:
U.S. Patent No. 8593 issued August 31, 1875, on a Flag on design consists of a tree, whose thirteen roots represent the original thirteen colonies of the United States, the names of which are written upon the roots. The trunk has at its base the words, “Declaration of In dependence’ around the date 1776, and the word “Constitution’ along its length upward. The eighteen branches represent the eighteen administrations, which are indicated by the names of the Presidents of the United States thereupon. Upon the foliage the names of the thirty-seven States and twelve Territories now composing the Union are written. The words “The Century Plant” are written above the tree, and beneath them the date 1876. Below the tree is a monogram of the initials J. C. D., and the whole is surrounded by a border of one hundred linked circles, and the dates beginning with 1776 and ending with 1876.
U.S. Patent No. D8876 issued December 28, 1875, on Printing or Weaving of Silk or Other Fabrics, features the preamble and signatures from the Declaration of Independence:
Have a happy and safe Fourth of July, and make sure to remember the document and its authors who made our freedom to do so possible.
Ninety-five years ago today, E.A. Murphy and Eric Owen made the first foam rubber at the Dunlop Latex Development Laboratories in Birmingham, England, using an ordinary kitchen mixer.
Dunlop Rubber Company Limited had filed a Great Britain application on March 21, 1929, and filed a corresponding application in the U.S. on March 20, 1930, which eventually issued on April 5, 1932, as U.S. Patent No. 1,852,447:
The patent explained that “the froth or lather may be formed by beating or stirring the material with paddles of the wire mesh type or with stirrers of the type used in cake mixing or egg beating machines or it may be formed by blowing air or other suitable gas into the dispersions or emulsions either alone or in conjunction with beating or whipping devices. The froth or rubber dispersion thus obtained may be formed to any desired shape as for example by pouring it into open molds and permitting it to set.”
While the original foamed latex has been replaced with foamed urethanes, think how much harder (literally and figuratively) life would be without foam rubber.
