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.