On November 14, 1967, Theodore H. Maiman received U.S. Patent No. 3,353,115, on a Ruby Laser System — the first functioning laser:
In April 1957 Jun-ichi Nishizawa proposed the concept of a “semiconductor optical maser.” Charles H. Townes and Arthur Leonard Schawlow of Bell Labs began work the same year on “optical masers,” and filed a patent application in 1958. At a conference in 1959, Gordon Gould coined the term “LASER” in the paper he presented “The LASER, Light Amplification by Stimulated Emission of Radiation.” However, it was Theodore H. Maiman who operated the first functioning laser on May 16, 1960, at Hughes Research Laboratories, ahead pf Townes, Schawlow, and Gould.
On November 12, 1856, Henry Bessemer received U.S. Patent No 16,082 on the Manufacture of Iron and Steel:
After the issuance of the patent was announced in the September 1856 Scientific American, William Kelly wrote a letter to the magazine in October 1856 describing his earlier experiments and suggesting that Bessemer’s process may have been derived from Kelly’s work. Keely applied for an obtained U.S. Patent No. 17,628 on June 23, 1857.
The financial panic of 1857 resulted in Kelly’s bankruptcy, and he was forced to sell his patent. Kelly’s patent and Bessemer’s patent were licensed for steelmaking in Pennsylvania, at the Cambria Iron Works. Kelly received only about 5% of the patent royalties paid to Bessemer, and Bessemer’s name was used for the process, as Bessemer already had a well-known steel making operation in England, and Kelly, although a trained metallurgist, was little known.
The Bessemer Process was an important method of making steel for nearly a century, until it was replaced by the open-hearth process.
There is a long history of celebrating our veterans in the patent collection. U.S Patent No. D3103 issued on July 14, 1868, to J. P Reynolds on an Emblem Design for veterans:
U.S. Patent No. D9129 issued to A.J. Dallas on a Badge for veterans
U.S. Patent No. D16768 issued to Charles Hall for a Memorial Plaque for veterans:
U.S. Patent No. D18,517 issued to Fred Arnold on a Veteran’s Grave Designator:
U.S. Patent No. D53251 issued to Isaac Nicholson for an Emblem, Button, Ring, Pin, or Article of Similar Nature for veterans:
U.S. Patent No. 1,429,506 issued to Frederick Herr on a Door Mat Operated Animated Figure, featuring a veteran:
U.S. Patent No. 1,466,112, issued to Paul Biersach on a Grave Marker for veterans:
U.S. Patent No. D87,962 issued to Willam Gardner on a Badge for Spanish War Veterans:
On November 10, 1970, Samuel Young received U.S. Patent No. 3,538,508 on a Combination pillow and Crash Helmet:
The patent explains that the device “is useful as a courtesy pillow for the comfort of airline passengers, and doubles as a crash helmet which may be put over the head of the passenger when he is forewarned of an impending crash landing.”
The pillow never caught on, but one can imagine the eerie sight the FAA and NTSB would encounter investigating a crash and finding all these bodies with their heads in a cloth envelope.
On November 9, 1842, George Bruce, an American printer, industrialist and inventor, received the first design patent, D1, issued on a typeface:
Since then, more than a million designs for products, or portions of a product, have been protected with a design patent. Most recently U.S. Patent No. 1050666 issued on a cross:
On November 2, 1982, Laul Galley received U.S. Patent No. 4,356,753 on a Musical Electro Magnetic Analog Synthesizer Controlled Rocket Engine. Mr. Galley explained that the effect achieved by the rocket engine output “is similar to that of a pipe organ” and that the pitch can be similarly controlled by “the barrel length and diameter of the rocket engine chamber exhaust structure.”
On November 1, 1881, Edwin Thatcher a computing engineer for the Keystone Bridge Company in Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, received U.S. Patent No. 249,117 on an improved slide rule. Thacher was a graduate of Rennselaer Polytechnic Institute and spent much of his career designing railway bridges, inventing his slide rule to assist with his calculations.
The slide rule was invented sometime between 1620 and 1630, shortly after John Napier’s publication of the concept of the logarithm. In 1620 Edmund Gunter of Oxford developed a calculating device with a single logarithmic scale. Two years later in 1622 William Oughtred of Cambridge combined two handheld Gunter rules to make a device that is recognizably the modern slide rule.
Edwin Thatcher’s slide rule is notable for its cylindrical form, although his was not the first slide rule of a cylindrical form factor. Thacher’s rule, though it fit on a desk, was equivalent to a conventional slide rule over 59 feet long. It had scales for multiplication and division and another scale, with divisions twice as large, for use in finding squares and square roots.
On October 30, 1888, John J. Loud a patent attorney and occasional inventor received U.S. Patent No. 392,046 on one of the first ball point pens.
This pen was not a commercial success, but others soon followed. None were very successful until Laszlo Biro’s ball point pen design, which received U.S. Patent No. 2,390,636 in 1945:
Ss influential was Biro’s design, that 79 years later ball point pens are called “Biros” in many parts of the world. In 1945 Milton Reynolds, an American businessman from Chicago, visited Argentina where Biros were being manufactured and bought some of Bíró’s pens. Reynolds returned to the U.S., and changing the design slightly to avoid Biro’s patent, and the “Reynold’s Rocket” went on sale at Gimbels on October 29, 1945. Initial sales were brisque, but ink leaks soon quelled the popularity of the pen.
The next big entrant on the ball point pen market was the Frawley Corporation, whose pen received U.S. Patent No. 2,734,484 on February 14, 1956:
The king of ball point pens, at least in the U.S., was Marcel Louis Michel Antoine Bich, who Bic pens were synonymous with ball point pens in the 1960’s and 1970’s. Bich received two design patents on ball point pen designs U.S. Patent Nos. D2024527 and D218492:
Bich also saw Biro’s pens in Argentina during World War II, and in 1944, licensed Biro’s design. Between 1949 and 1950, Bich’s design team at Société PPA designed the familiar Bic Crystal, which he launched in Europe in in December 1950,and in 1959 brought the pen to the American Market.
IIn September 2006, the Bic Cristal was named the best selling pen in the world after the 100 billionth was sold.
On October 29, 1872, James A. Risdon received U.S. Patent 132,602 on an improved windmill entitled Wind-wheel:
Until the 1870’s windmills were made of wood, the only metal being bolts and other small parts. Risdon’s “Iron Turbine” was the first all metal windwill, and appeared on the market in 1876. A few years later,
Henry H. Beville, patented (U.S. Patent No. 226265) another all-metal design in 1880:
Beville was a traveling salesman for a farm implement company in Indiana. He licensed the “Iron Duke” for manufacture and sale, making a substantial profit on his invention.
