On July 25. 2-24, Ty Atkins of Jacksonville, Florida, received U.S. Patent No.11,707650 on a Beverage Dispensing Ring Toss Headwear:

But Ty was no one-hit wonder, he previously patented (U.S. Patent No. 10,952,487) on a Beverage Dispensing Umbrella Headwear:

On July 24, 1990, Thomas Manix received U.S. Patent No. 4,943,252 on an Avalanche Flotation Ball:

It not clear what kind of Freedom to Practice studies that Q Branch conducts, but just nine years later they provisioned Jame Bond 9 years later in The World is Not Enough, James an (Pierce Brosnan) and Elektra (Sophie Marceau) used a very similar device provided by Q to survive an avalanche:

On July 23, 1996, John J, Norton, received U.S. Patent No. D372,056 on a Toy Castle:

This patent was assigned to The Little Tikes Company, and was a poplar toy:

On July 22, 1969, Daon Parry and Thomas J. Walters received U.S. Patent No. D214725 on a building:

This building was actually built by Architect/Inventor Walters in Scarsdale, New York, in 1969, the year the patent issued, and was for many years the European Health Spa. It was abandoned for several years and apparently was demolished in 2001. Walters work, however, survives in the patent collection:

On July 21, 2026, Chad P. Budreau received U.S. Patent No. 5,131,832 on a Heated Ice Cream Scoop Apparatus:

The scoop employs a disposable butane lighter as the heat source to heat the scoop to facilitate dispensing the ice cream.

Chad was not the only inventor to repurpose a butane cigarette lighter. Jerald and Joseph Bovino used a butane lighter as the heat source for their Fly Tackle Steamer (U.S. Patent No. 4,401,102):

James Rose repurposed a lighter to provide the heat for his hot air tool for Heat-Shrink Tubuing (U.S. Patent No. 5,476,089:

On July 20, 1999, Dennis Olsen received U.S. Patent No. 5,924,732, on an In-Line Skate Sail:

Others with a similar disregard for personal safety invented personal sail-powered systems, for example, Budge’s U.S. Patent No. 3,982,766 on a Wind-Propelled Skateboard:

and Lornenz, U.S. Patent No. 4,130,292, Apparatus for Propelling a Skate Board with Wind Currents:

But Olsen’s idea was to keep the sail above the user’s head.

On July 19, 1892, U.S. Patent No. 479,207, issued to G.Q. Seaman on a Time Alarm Bed:

The bed is constructed to “eject the occupant of the bed, so that the said occupant will not only be awakened, but must necessarily arise.”

This is probably the logical escalation of Samuel S. Applegatte’s Device for Waking Persons form Sleep, (U.S. Patent No. 256265), which merely employed 60 bells suspended over the bed to wake the occupant:

On July 18, 1967, U.S. Patent No. D208,096, issued to Robert K. Ostrander, Jr., on a Toy Vehicle Station, and assigned to Fisher-Price Toys, Inc.:

Robert was born July 4, 1932, and he died December 30, 2017. Mr. Ostrander earned a Bachelor of Industrial Science Degree from Pratt Institute, and served in the U.S. Army for three years. In 1963, he was hired by Herm Fisher as a designer, he worked on the Little People, the Toy Vehicle Station above, the Jumbo Jet, and the Farm Set, among many other products.

He was the hired as Vice President of Research and Design at Playskool, where her worked until 975, when we he happily returned to Fisher-Price, as Director of Research and Design until 1983.

On July 17, 1888, Jack W. James received U.S. Patent No., 386,403 on an Apparatus for Preventing Collisions of Railway Trains:

The invention is a telescoping extension from the front of the train, which when it contacts actuates the brakes and reverses the engine:

A few years later, H.L. Simmons solved the problem a different way — providing a ramp so that one train can pass harmlessly over the other one: