On June 28, Frank L. Ogg received U.S. Patent No. D110257 on a Pennant Like Device:

As has been posted here many times, the patent collection is a fascinating historical record. The Golden Gate International Exposition was a World’s Fair held at Treasure Island in San Francisco, California. It operated from February 18, 1939, through October 29, 1939, and from May 25, 1940, through September 29, 1940, and drew 17 million visitors.

On the opposite side of the country, New York was holding a world’s fair, and here is the patent on the parachute drop amusement ride at the fair:

On June 27, 1989. Jeffrey Gorman and Marilyn Katz received U.S. Patent No. D301835 on a confection package:

However, Gorman and Katz are better known for the patent they didn’t get — on their application 06/882,480 for a utility patent on the product depicted in their design patent. The Patent Office rejected the claims of their utility patent were rejected in view of thirteen references. It seems logical to most inventors and may practitioners that if it takes 13 references to meet a claim that that claim cannot be obvious. However logical that may sound it is not the law.

The Federal Circuit in In re Gorman and Katz, 933 F.2d 982, 18 U.S.P.Q.2d 1885 (Fed. Cir. 1991), said:

The criterion, however, is not the number of references, but what they would have meant to a person of ordinary skill in the field of the invention. In Hybritech, Inc. v. Monoclonal Antibodies, Inc., 802 F.2d 1367, 1383, 231 USPQ 81, 93 (Fed.Cir.1986), cert. denied, 480 U.S. 947, 107 S.Ct. 1606, 94 L.Ed.2d 792 (1987), the court held that a combination of about twenty references that “skirt[ed] all around” the claimed invention did not show obviousness. In other instances, on other facts, we have upheld reliance on a large number of references to show obviousness. Compare In re Miller, 159 F.2d 756, 758-59, 72 USPQ 512, 514-15 (CCPA 1947) (rejecting argument that the need for eight references for rejection supported patentability) with Kansas Jack, Inc. v. Kuhn, 719 F.2d 1144, 1149, 219 USPQ 857, 860 (Fed.Cir.1983) (where teachings relied upon to show obviousness were repeated in a number of references, the conclusion of obviousness was strengthened). See also, e.g., In re Troiel, 274 F.2d 944, 947, 124 USPQ 502, 504 (CCPA 1960) (rejecting appellant’s argument that combining a large number of references to show obviousness was “farfetched and illogical”).

Gorman and Katz at least enjoyed the protection of a design patent for its 14-year term.

On June 26, 1797, U.S. Patent X177 on a plough, issued to Charles Newbold.

This was the first U.S. patent on a plough, and was followed a steady stream of improvements in agricultural technology. One of the more peculiar of which was the combination plow and cannon, patented by French & Fancher in 1862 (U.S. Patent No. 36600), which must have made the plow-horse very nervous.

On June 7, 2005, David P. Coughlin received U.S. Patent No. 6,901,925 on a Fireplace with Waterfall:

While it is not clear whether Mr. Coughlin had any success before his patent expired, the idea of mixing fire and water is a popular one with inventors:

On June 6, 1995, Peter and John Kockelman et al., received U.S. Patent No. 5,421,783 on a Human Slingshot Machine.

While a human slingshot is not for everyone, it is considerably safer than the human cross bow from U.S. Patent No. 562448:

I suppose that that is the march of progress (or perhaps OSHA).

On June 5, 1945, Frank W. Schwinn received U.S. Patent No. D141505 on a Tandem Bicycle:

Frank W. Schwinn was the son of Ignaz Schwinn, who founded the Schwinn bicycle company in 1895, Frank joined the company around 1918, taking over leadership of the company during the Great Depression, and running the company until his death in 1963.

Frank’s design was not the first tandem bicycles — which became popular in the 1880’s, and boomed in the 1890’s after Harry Dacre’s 1892 song “Daisy Bell” (The Bicycle Built for Two song). Nor was Frank’s design the first Schwin tandem bicycle — his father Ignaz had been manufacturing Tandem bicycles since the 1890’s. In fact, Frank’s design may never have been produced. in the 1940’s, Schwinn Tandem’s had a very different chain guard, as shown in this advertisement in the 1948 catalog featuring comedian Bob Hope:

Even if this design was never commercialized, Frank W. Scwhinn made numerous contributions to the design and manufacture of bicycles in a career spanning 5 decades, ending in his death in 1963, when the third generation of Schwinn, Frank V. Schwinn took over the company.

On April 22, 1924, U.S. Patent No. 1,490,987 issued to Harry E. Soref on a lock casing:

Soref’s innovation was making the lock body from a plurality of steel laminations secured together with rivets — a construction still widely used 102 years later.

Soref was born in 1887 Bilozirka, Ukraine, and emigrated to the U.S. where he worked as a lock smith. When he was unable to find a taker for his lock design, he co-founded the Master Lock company with two friends — Samuel Stahl and Phillip E. Yolles, in Milwaukee, Wisconsin, to build his locks. Mr. Soref held more than eighty patents for locks and lock-making machinery.

He died in 1957 in Phoenix, Arizona, aged 70.

On April 21, 1857, U.S. Patent No. 17082 issued to Alexander Douglas on a Bustle:

While necessity may be the mother of invention, the ‘082 patent is proof that necessity is not always, the mother of invention.

The earliest U.S. patent reference to a bustle was U.S. Patent No. 4897, issued December 17, 1846, predating Douglas’ invention by nearly 11 years. Douglas’ patent was the start of a frenzy as inventors hustled to the Patent Office invention with their bustles, and 15 more bustle patents issued in the next two years: U.S. Patent Nos. 17,602, 20,263, 20,681, 20,801, 20,865, 21479, 21,806, 22,124, 22,133, 22,197, 22,242, 22,426, 22,532, 22,875 and 23,681. While inventors’ interest in bustles died down before the end of the 19th century, it has never completely gone away, with U.S. Patent No. 12582183 issuing on March 24, 2026, on a Bustle Device to Be Received Under Garments.

On March 14, 1899, U.S. Patent No. 621195 issued to Ferdinand Graf Zeppelin on a navigable balloon:

Ferdinand Graf Zeppeli was born July 8, 1838, he was a Count and general. He served as an official observer with the Union Army during the U.S Civil War, visiting the balloon camp of Thaddeus Lowe, and then made his first ascent in a balloon in St. Paul with former Army balloonist John Steiner, which was the inspiration of his later interest in aeronautics. Zeppelin’s ideas for large airships were first recorded in a March 25, 1874, diary entry.

After resigning from the Army in 1891, at the age of 52, Zeppelin devoted himself to designing an air ship. He patented the design in Germany in 1895 and in the United States in 1899. After initial succes, the name Zeppelin came to be commonly used to refer to all forms of rigid airships. Zeppelin also created the world’s first commercial airline, using his air ships.