On December 4, 1990, Casimir M. Lazickas received U.S. Patent No. 4,974,611 on a Shoe Horn and Comb Combination:

While no doubt convenient, is this combination inventive? Casimir’s “invention” calls to mind Hymen Lipman’s 1830 “invention” of a combined pencil and eraser, for which he received U.S. patent 19,783. Lipman sold the patent to Faber in 1862 for $100,000. However, in 1875 the Supreme Court in Reckendorfer v. Faber, 92 U.S. 347 (1875), invalided the patent because Lipman’s invention was simply a combination of two already known devices. The Supreme Court said “The combination, to be patentable, must produce a different force or effect or result in the combined forces or processes from that given by their separate parts. There must be a new result produced by their union; if not so, it is only an aggregation of separate elements.”

On December 2, 1952, U.S. Patent No. 2,620,061 issued to Oskar Uxa, on a Pocket Article Dispensing Container — the PEZ dispenser:

The PEZ dispenser started out as a way to dispense peppermints to help people quit smoking and freshen their breath. In fact, the name PEZ comes from the first, middle, and last letter of pfefferminz, the German word for peppermint.

Quitting smoking wasn’t quite a thing in the early ’50’s, so the company quickly pivoted to fruit flavors and began marketing the former mints as candy for children. The design of the dispenser evolved from a full body Santa, to a candy dispensing gun, to the iconic character head on top of the original dispenser.

The first design popular character designs were Popeye, Casper, and Bozo the Clown.

On December 1, 1856, U.S. Patent No. 18,788, issued to Ephraim Ball on a Mowing Machine:

Ephraim Ball was born in Stark County, Ohio, in 1812. In 1840 Ball started a foundry for making plough castings, and a shop for selling ploughs known as “Ball’s Blue Ploughs.” He formed a partnership with Cornelius Aultman and Lewis Miller, and in 1851 opened Ball, Aultman & Co. appeared in Canton, Ohio. In 1854, ball created the “Ohio Mower,” but a fire delayed completion of a practical machine until 1856, when the company made 500 “O.

In 1856, Ball, Aultman & Co., made five hundred “Ohio Mowers.” In 1858 the firm dissolved, with each partner forming a new business. Ephraim Ball went on to manufacture Ball’s New American Harvester.

On November 30, 1875, Asmus.J. Ehrrichson, of Akron, Ohio, received U.S. Patent No. 170536 on an Oat-Meal Machine:

In the United States oats were primarily horse feed until a German grocer, Ferdinand Schumacher emigrated to the United States in the mid-1800s. In 1854 Schumacher began grinding oats in his Akron, Ohio, store, using a hand mill similar that used to grind coffee beans. Schumacher then opened the German Mills American Oatmeal Company, grinding the oats between two rotating millstones. The ground oats resulted in a cooked oatmeal that was pasty and lumpy.

Asmus J. Ehrrichsen, one of Schumacher’s employees, replaced the millstones with rotating knife blades. This substantially reduced the amount of residue and produced a more uniform meal. Unfortunately, meal of uniform taste and flakiness. While producing a better product, Ehrrichsen’s invention still resulted in significant waste, prompting Schumacher three years later to purpurchase porcelain rollers from England. Not only did the rollers eliminate waste, but they produced a meal that could be cooked in as little as one hour.

An interesting side note is that in nearby Ravenna, a mill owned by Heston and Seymour, was also selling steel-cut oats, but instead of selling them in bulk, they packaged them in paper boxes with the printed cooking directions, calling their product ” printed on the outside. They called their product “Quaker Oats.”

On November 29, 1932, Laurens Hammond (of Hammond organ fame) received U.S. Patent No. 1,889,729 (one of his more than one hundred patents) on a Card Table with Automatic Dealing Mechanism:

The table was designed to automatically deal four bridge hands of 13 cards, and was actually manufactured:

On November 28,

Herman Casler was a pioneering American inventor and motion-picture engineer best known for co-founding the American Mutoscope and Biograph Company and for creating several foundational early-cinema technologies. Trained as a mechanical engineer, Casler first gained prominence in the 1890s when he developed the Mutoscope, a hand-cranked “flip-card” motion-picture viewer that displayed moving images by rapidly flipping a sequence of photographs mounted on a circular drum. [U.S. Patent No. 549,309, issued November 5, 1895, and (U.S. Patent No. 683,910, granted October 8, 1901)]. Cheaper and more durable than Thomas Edison’s Kinetoscope, the Mutoscope became wildly popular in amusement parlors and helped establish Biograph as one of the most influential early film companies.

Casler’s inventive contributions extended well beyond the viewer itself. He designed the Mutograph camera, a large and robust motion-picture camera that used wide, high-quality film, giving Biograph productions their famously sharp images. He also developed improvements to film perforation, camera mechanics, and projection systems that shaped the technical standards of early cinema.

Today’s patent of the day is from May 10, 1927, when U.S. Patent No. 1,628,121 issued to Nathan Covel on a “Package” for cand shown decorated with Thanksgiving imagery:

It always seems a bit macabre to depict a turkey next to a tree stump chopping block and an ax, but Happy Thanksgiving anyway!

On November 12, 19985, U.S. Patent No. 4,551,857 issued to Aaron A Galvin on a Hot Weather Hat:

Providing cooling in a hat has been a hot topic for inventors.

On November 21, 1967, U.S. Patent No. 3,353,191 issued on a Cooling Unit for a Hat:

On December 22, 1970, U.S. Patent No. 3,543,415 issued on an Air Conditioned Helmet:

On November 20, 1984, U.S. Patent No. 4,483,021 on a Thermo-Electric Cooled Head Gear:

On November 11, 1856, U.S. Patent Np. 16082 issued to Henry Bessemer on the Manufacture of Iron and Steel:

Bessemer’s steel-making process was the most important technique for making steel in the nineteenth century. Bessemer system involved blowing air through molten pig iron to remove the impurities, make steel easier, quicker and cheaper to manufacture. Bessemer also made at least 128 other inventions in the fields of iron, steel and glass. He was knighted for his contribution to science in 1879, and in the same year was made a fellow of the Royal Society.

On November 10, 1964, U.S. Patent No. 3,156,177 on Food Preheating, Cooking and Warming Device issued to Harlan Sanders:

A few years later, the Colonel received a second patent, U.S. Patent No. 3,245,800 on a Process of Producing Fried Chicken Under Pressure:

Interestingly, in the Process of Producing Fried Chicken Under Pressure it is the chicken that is under pressure, not the poor cook behind the counter.