On July 26, 1775, the U.S. postal system was established by the Second Continental Congress, with Benjamin Franklin appointed the first postmaster general. Although no patents surround the creation of the postal service (the first U.S. patent did not issue until fifteen years later, on July 31, 1790), the U.S. Postal Service has received 660 patents since 1975, on things like digital stamps (US11348056) and mailboxes (D727589)

It’s hard to imagine the Postal Service ever enforcing these patents against FedEx or UPS, but they probably provide a good defense against third party claims against the Postal Service.

On July 25, 1871, Seth Wheeler received U.S. Patent No. 117,355, on Improvement in Wrapping-Papers — the improvement being providing the paper in a perforated roll:

As Wheeler explained in his patent, previously wrapping paper was sold in individual sheets, which were difficult (and expensive) to deal with. The concept of perforations must have been percolating in his head because twenty years later, he invented and patented (U.S. Patent No. 459,516) a roll of perforated toilet paper:

Wheeler followed up just a few months later with U.S. Patent No. 465,588 on a Toilet-Paper Roll, having improved perforations for easy tearing,

The significance of Wheelers patents cannot be overstated, for they settle once and for all that the paper should hang from the front of the roll (not the back of the roll). If Wheeler were alive today he no doubt would flush with pride over how essential his invention became to modern life.

120 years ago today, Charles E. Menches, a concessionaire from Ohio, allegedly invented and sold the first ice cream cone at the 1904 World’s Fair in St. Louis. Facing a dwindling supply of serving dishes, Menches allegedly approached a fellow vendor, Ernest A. Hamwi, a Syrian immigrant selling a wafer-thin pastry called zalabia. Charles rolled a still-warm zalabia into a cone shape, and filled it with ice cream. The rest, as they say, is history.

In the years that followed, numerous other vendors made competing claims of inventorship, and today we may never know if Menches claim is correct. The year before the Fair Italo Marchiony patented a mold for making an edible serving dish for ice cream, but these looked more like teacups than a cone.

In 1905, a year after the Fair, Lanier and Driesbach filed an application on a Confection Apparatus, which issued as U.S. Patent No. 839,488 on Christmas Day 1906. The pair received a second patent (U.S. Patent No, 919,601) on an improved apparatus a few years later.

Menches never patented the ice cream cone, although a few years after the Fair, he did receive U.S. Patent No. 924,484 on a Baking Iron for Ice Cream Cones:

Menches, and his brother Frank, are also credited by some with the invention of the hamburger, at the 1885 Erie County Fair in Hamburg, New York, although that claim is even more suspect.

Menches ice cream cone story, if true, proves the old adage that necessity is the Mother of invention.

On Jully 22, 1952, Frank L. Zyback was awarded U.S. Patent No. 2,604,359 on a Self-Propelled Springing Irrigating Apparatus — the center pivot irrigation system.

Zyback was a farmer from Nebraska who left school in the seventh grade to help at his father’s farm and blacksmith shop. Zybach became a skilled metalworker and an inventor earning nine patents (U.S. Patent No. 2941727, 2355773, 1731220, 1597648, 1727625, 1770569, and 1879733. and Canadian Patent No. 284294), and literally changing the landscape of America (and many other places). If you have ever looked out the plane window while flying across the country you have no doubt seen the thousands of green circles created by Zyback’s systems.

Valley Manufacturing acquired the patent rights from Zybach in 1954, improving the system. Renamed Valmont Industries, Inc. in 1966 the company is a global leader for center-pivot systems and other agricultural products, with $4.2 billion in sales, 11,000 employees, doing business in more than 100 countries. For his work greening up American and the rest of the world one circle at a time, Frank Zyback was inducted into the National Inventor’s Hall of Fame in 2022.

On July 21, 1987, John Geddie was issued U,S, Patent No. 4,681,244 on a Portable Bar:

Mr. Geddie explained:

The objectives of the present invention are accomplished by providing a rigid hat that may be adjusted to fit different size heads such, for example, as a safety helmet or hard hat with an adjustable head band provided therein. Several drink containers are mounted on the sides of the hat using elastic bands that are inserted through slots in the hat and fastened to the inside of the hat. In the illustrated embodiment there are six such containers, including two relatively large containers that might be used for soft drinks such, for example, as soda or ginger ale. The other four containers are relatively smaller and might be used to hold one or more alcoholic beverages. Each drink container is provided with a tube for carrying liquid from the container to one of two gang valves on the front of the hat that may be used for mixing drinks from two or more drink containers. Alternatively, a user of the portable bar may drink from any one container by opening the valve controlling the flow of liquid from that container and closing the valves that control the flow of liquid from all of the other drink containers.

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

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.