On October 26, 1909, Frank G. Daggett and Edward G. Slinghart received U.S. Patent No. 938125 on a Hair Growing Device:
The patent explains “[a]s is well known, a fruitful source of loss of hair is the lack of ventilation or circulation of air within hats. The warmth of the head soon heats the air within the hat and the presence of this warm air in contact with the scalp causes the hair to lose its vitality and to fall out.”
The device comprises comprises “a receptacle having perforations therein and provided with means for attaching the receptacle to the body or crown of the hat, together with a sack or container for material in a dry or powdered form capable, when heated or moistened of evolving oxygen.” “In operation, the warmth and moisture of the head heats and moistens the air confined within the hat and gradually evolves oxygen from the ingredients contained within the sack.”
On October 11, 1938, Games Slayter received U.S. Patent No. 2,133,235, on a Method and Apparatus for Making Glass Wool:
Slayter was the driving force behind the development of fiber glass for Owens-Illinois. A few years later Dale Kleist, a researcher working under Slayter, discovered an improvement to the process when he accidently blasted the fiber with air, which after some refinement resulted in U.S. Patent No. 2,121,802:
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 16, 2011, President Obama signed the euphemistically named American Invents Act. While its benefit to inventors is suspect, its impact on patent law cannot be disputed.
The first AIA patent to issue, i.e.. the first patent issued on an application filed on or after the March 16, 2013, effective date of the Act, is U.S. Patent No. 8,542,543 filed March 16, 2013, and issued September 24, 2013:
Only 140 patents have issued so far on applications filed on March 16, 2013 — a Saturday. 10,474 patents have issued on applications filed a day earlier, no doubt this number is bolstered by applicants trying to avoid the uncertain impact of the new patent law as a typical weekday’s filing result in 1,500-2,000 patents.
Like it or hate it, we are stuck with AIA patents, and U.S. Patent No. 8,542,543 led the way.
100 years ago today, US Patent No. 1,507,279, issued on Signaling Means for Toy Banks and for Other Purposes:
The patent explains that the invention relates primarily to improvements in signaling means capable of a variety of uses such as in connection with toy banks, show windows, advertising devices, light houses, etc.
On August 8, 1911, U.S. Patent No. 1,000,000,issued to Francis Holton for a vehicle tire
As of August 8, 2024, we are at U.S. Patent No. 12,058,943. In 113 years approximately 11,058,943 utility patents have issued averaging 97867 per year for 113 years or 8756 per month for 1356 months or 268 patents per day for 41, 274 days. That’s a lot of inventing!
On August 3, 1840, U.S. Patent No, 1711 issued to William Howe on a Truss Bridge.
This design was an improvement over his previous design, patented a month earlier on July 10, 1840, as U.S. Patent No. 1685:
Howe’s design was widely used through the middle and end of the 19th century, and was often used in the construction of covered bridges because the cover would protect the timbers in the truss, extending the life of the bridge. Howe patented (U.S. Patent No. 4726) a further improvement in 1846.
The Howe’s were a particular inventive family, with several members making inventions and getting, patents, the most notable is William’s nephew Elias, knows as the inventor of the sewing machine. Elias’ U.S. Patent No. 4750 was not the first patent on a sewing machine, but its lockstitch method was a substantial improvement. Meeting with limited commercial success, however, Elias turned to enforcement, and after many years of litigation, in 1856 formed the first American patent pool with Wheeler &Wilson, Grover & Baker, and another familiar name in sewing machines, I.M. Singer.
On August 1, 1893, Henry D. Perky and William H. Ford were issued U.S. Patent No. 502378 on a Machines for the Preparation of Cereals for Food, which forms the boiled, steamed, steeped, or soaked grain into the familiar “pillow” shape of shredded wheat. He introduced the product at the Chicago World’s Fair in 1893.
In 1895 Perky was issued U.S. Patent No. 548,086, as well as U.S. Patent No. D24688 on the shape of the biscuit itself:
After the patents expired, Kellogg Company saw that as an opportunity for Kellogg’s to sell its own version of the product. Kellogg obtained a patent on the biscuit in 1916, and Kellogg’s Shredded Wheat was born. Kellogg obtained its own patents on the shredded wheat biscuit (U.S. Patent No. 1,168,888), numerous patents on the method of prepare shredded wheat biscuits (U.S. Patent Nos. 1,102,614, 1,124,363, 1,159,045, 1,170,162, and 1,197,297), on the package for the shredded wheat biscuits (U.S. Patent No. 1,914,336), and entered the market.
This provoked Perky’s successor National Biscuit Company to sue Kellogg for trademark infringement, attempting to enjoin it from using Shredded Wheat as a trademark and from manufacturing the cereal in its pillow-shaped form. The case eventually made it to the United States Supreme Court case Kellogg Co. v. National Biscuit Co., 305 U.S. 111, 59 S.Ct. 109, 83 L.Ed. 73 (1938). The Supreme Court held that the term “shredded wheat” was generic and not trademarkable — it was a term in public use for the product, and was how the product was described in the expired patents. Further, the court held that when the patent for the shredded wheat machinery expired in 1912, the right to make the shredded wheat “pillows” and apply the name “shredded wheat” to the resulting product, passed into the public domain along with that patent. This has been an important limitation of trade dress rights ever since.
A side lesson to learn is that St. Louis (the ice cream cone) handily beats Chicago (shredded wheat) as far as World’s Fair Food is concerned.
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:
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.
