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A look back at an ovoidal innovation and other work compiled by Stephen Drew, Improbable Research staff
The name of inventor Hiram S. Dotts is now less well known that it once was. So, too, are his inventions, two of which—perhaps Dotts’s most enduringly influential—are described here.
Detail from the patent for Dotts’s improved egg-opener.
Be it known that I, HIRAM S. DOTTS, a citizen of the United States, residing at Thoburn, in the county of Marion, State of West Virginia, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Egg-Openers, of which the following is a specification.
So begins the text to U.S. patent #696,016, granted March 25, 1902 to Hiram S. Dotts. Mr. Dotts’s description, despite dealing with a subject of great technical complexity, is nearly poetical. Dotts (and/or his lawyer, E.B. Stocking) reduces the device, and its place in the world, to just 41 words:
This invention relates to egg-openers, and to particularly to a construction embodying jaws movable in their relation to each other and toward an egg in order to fracture the shell thereof upon a peripheral line extending in a single horizontal plane.
Detail from the patent for Dotts’s improved cigar-tip-protecting-label technology.
Just over thirteen years later, on December 7, 1915, Dotts received a patent for a device in an almost wholly different field of endeavor. In his words (and/or those of his attorney, E.B. Stocking):
Be it known that I, HIRAM S. DOTTS, a citizen of the United States, residing at Marianna, in the county of Washington and State of Pennsylvania, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Cigar-Tip-Protecting Labels, of which the following is a specification, reference being had therein to the accompanying drawing.
This invention relates to certain new and useful improvements in cigar tip-protecting labels, the object being to provide a combination tip protector and label so constructed that the label will be held in position on the cigar by the tip protector.
However well Dotts was known to the public during his lifetime, his fame is now surpassed by that of other inventors, many of whom knew or know little or nothing firsthand about how to make improvements on egg-openers or cigar-tip-protecting-labels. It is possible that readers of this article will rectify or perpetuate this state of affairs.
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The article above is from the September-October 2008 issue of the Annals of Improbable Research. You can download or purchase back issues of the magazine, or subscribe to receive future issues. Or get a subscription for someone as a gift!
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An abandoned way to frighten a frightening animal
by Nan Swift, Improbable Research staff
These drawings tell the purpose and the workings of a machine called a “pop-up device for deterring an attacking animal such as a bear,” invented by Adam Warwick Bell of San Francisco and Anthony Victor Saunders of London. Mr. Bell is a patent attorney and a biochemist. Mr. Saunders is a mountain climber who walked atop Mount Everest (which, let us be clear, does not have bears at its summit) and other mountains, and often returned in reasonably good health.
The drawings are part of Bell and Saunders’s U.S. patent application (#10/634719), which they filed on August 5, 2003, and which, on June 7, 2005, the Patent Office declared to be “abandoned.”
The application includes this summary:
A device carried by the human hiker that comprises a pop-up (preferably inflatable) figure that is large and may be rapidly deployed by the user. The figure is meant to scare away an attacking or aggressive animal such as a bear. The activation of the pop-up figure may be accompanied by noises and/or smells and/or projectiles and/or smoke.The inventors say that their methods “may be applied to many different kinds of animal such as elk, moose, mountain lions, buffalo, hippopotamus, rhino, elephant, boar and other animals that are known to be dangerous to man.”
“The Invention,” they explain, “works on the principle of maximizing the apparent size and ferocity of the human, intimidating the bear (or other animal) and making it retreat from an encounter it fears losing.”
Bell and Saunders see quickness as being important:
The device increases rapidly in size, thereby scaring the animal and deterring the attack upon the user…. Inflation should be very rapid… the figure should be fully inflated within less than 1 minute, or within less than 30 seconds or preferably within less than 10 seconds or most preferably within less than 5 seconds.
A model of an electromagnetic engine. Rothschild Patent Model Collection,
Scherzi Photography
Inventors today have got it easy. If they want to patent something, all they have to do is file some paperwork. Before 1880, however, if you wanted to patent a better mousetrap, you actually had to build it - or at least a miniature version to help patent inspectors understand why you actually deserve the patent.
Curator Charles Robertson is showcasing about 30 examples of such models from the private collection of Alan Rothschild and Wired blog has photos of some of the neatest: Link | 2006 article about the Rothschild Patent Model Museum in Forbes
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What’s the hottest new home accessory that will make your life easier and way more fun? Well, it’s probably not this sadistic little number, and if you think this thing looks like fun then you’re sick! Leo Voelker applied for a patent for this strange device, a combination bird catcher and cat feeder, in 1979 and either the guy hates birds or there was a plague of them in his backyard. Feeding your cute little kitty never seemed so gross, and I wouldn’t want to be the one who has to clean out the trap. Oh, according to Leo you won’t have to clean it:
“The cat feeder by its design is self-cleaning since the cat quickly learns to remove the sparrow from the cage.”
Thankfully, you won’t be seeing these in your neighborhoods anytime soon, and cats will just have to settle for birds they can catch on their own.
Link -via BoingBoing
The NeatoShop’s Inflatable Bear Head we saw a couple of days ago may have more than one use. Sure, it’s a nice decoration, but also…
When a big bear approaches, some people choose to quietly stroll away. To give them an extra measure of safety, Anthony Victor Saunders and Adam Warwick Bell invented what they call a “pop-up device for deterring an attacking animal”.
Saunders, a London-based mountain climber, and Bell, a California patent attorney, applied for a patent in 2002, but later abandoned it. They would equip hikers with, essentially, an inflatable doll “meant to scare away an attacking or aggressive animal such as a bear”. The frightful balloon could also be used against “elk, moose, mountain lions, buffalo, hippopotamus, rhino, elephant, boar”. They explain that it “works on the principle of maximising the apparent size and ferocity of the human, intimidating the bear”.
However, for obvious reasons the device must be inflated very fast -the faster, the better. The NeatoShop bear head might not be adequate for such a purpose. Read more about Saunder’s and Bell’s device at The Guardian. Link -via Improbable Research
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“Build a better mousetrap, and the world will beat a path to your door.” Sure, it’s an old saw, but it’s also literally true.
Between 1838, when the United States Patent Office opened its doors, and 1996, the year that Jack Hope wrote a story about the device for American Heritage magazine, more than 4,400 mousetrap patents were awarded in dozens of different subclasses, including “Electrocuting and Explosive,” “Swinging Striker,” “Choking or Squeezing,” and 36 others. That’s an average of more than two dozen patents every year for more than 150 years. What makes that number more spectacular is that 95 percent of those patents were given to amateur, or first-time inventors.
That’s more patents than have been awarded for any other device, according to the Smithsonian Institution’s National Museum of American History (NMAH), which is currently celebrating the mousetrap by displaying several different designs on the first floor of the museum in one of several long glass cases that greet visitors, both new and returning, when they enter the building.
Nicholas Jackson writes in The Atlantic about various mousetrap designs and how they represent the entrepreneurial spirit. Included is a gallery of some of the more interesting mousetrap patents recorded over the years. Link -via Look at This
Thomas Cane patented a device in 1996 that will alert children to the presence of Santa Claus. If someone trips the sensor disguised as a ribbon across the fireplace, lights in the stockings will be triggered, giving proof that Santa came through the hearth! One would think the appearance of candy in the previously-empty stockings might be proof enough. Link -via the Presurfer
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The problem with being dead and buried – besides all that rotting flesh stuff – is that it’s darned lonely to spend all of eternity by oneself.
Thankfully, inventor Jeff Dannenberg took care of the problem with this nifty and patented invention:
An apparatus and method for generating post-burial audio communications from surviving friends and loved ones in a casket by providing a burial
casket, and providing an electronic audio communication system for placement in said casket to automatically electronically generate post-burial communications in said casket.
This way, you can continue wish the dead "Happy Birthday," "Merry Christmas," "Happy Anniversary" until the end of time. Or until the battery runs out, whichever is first.
Link – Thanks Martin g!
Previously on Neatorama: Patently Silly Animal Patents | Top 10 Strangest Anti-Terrorism Patents
If you ever wondered exactly how much you poop every day, then this invention is for you: the human turd scale. Yes, you read that right: a scale that weighs your excrement.
United States patent 1493222 is for "A weighing device especially adapted for weighing feces as excreted." Simply put, the patent is for a toilet outfitted with a turd scale in the bowl. A person seats themselves on the toilet, does their "business," and just like stepping on a traditional scale, takes a deep breath and hopes the number that registers at the top of the toilet bowl does not betray the number they’ve been praying for.
InventorSpot has more: Link
In 1908, Ellen E. Perkins of Beaver Bay, Minnesota, was appalled the side effects of masturbation (which was actually a vast improvement over the accepted medical view a few decades earlier)
It is a deplorable but well known fact that one of the most common causes of insanity, imbecility and feeble mindedness, especially in youth, is due to masturbation or self abuse. This is about equally true of both sexes.
Physicians, and more particularly physicians, nurses and attendants associated with insane asylums, have long found this habit the most difficult of all bad practices to eradicate, because of the incessant attention required of them in respect to the subjects in their care. In fact it has been found practically impossible to give any such unfortunate person that constant personal attention which is, under heretofore tried methods of treatment, necessary to accomplish the redemption of such persons from such habits. Therefore, with persons who have carried on such disasterous practices until serious ailments of the mind have resulted, there has been but little hope of cure.
Until Ms. Perkins sprang into action and created and patented this nifty invention. Ladies and gentlemen, behold the Sexual Armor:
From Totally Absurd Inventions, which lists "America’s Goofiest Patents," here is the Gerbil Shirt:
The Gerbil Shirt wraps your torso in plastic tube passageways, making your bod a super highway of fun for Binky and Bart. The interior surfaces are textured for traction and have air vents for easy breathing.
The inventor suggests you can clean the Gerbil Shirt by attaching it to a faucet (remove pets first please), and you should avoid collisions and falls that could cause pet panic.
If you’re one of the millions of people practicing yoga for mental and physical health, you may soon run into legal trouble: a lot of the traditional poses are being patented and trademarked by Western yoga teachers.
So, India is fighting back: it has set up a team of yoga gurus and scientists to identify and patent all ancient yoga positions or asanas to stop "patent pirates."
… as the number of Western yoga teachers has grown, there has been a steady increase in patent applications claiming each pose in their class is not part of the ancient discipline of mind and body, but their own unique invention. In the United States alone, there have been more than 130 yoga-related patents, 150 copyrights and 2,300 trademarks. Now India’s Traditional Knowledge Digital Library is being made available to patents offices throughout the world so they can establish whether the claim is a genuine innovation or "prior art" from Indian systems of medicine.
[...] The attempt by US teachers to patent traditional poses has caused disbelief and anger in India, where it has been practiced for around 6,000 years.
"Copyrights over yoga postures and trademarks on yoga tools have become rampant in the West. Till now, we have traced 130 yoga-related patents in the US. We hope to finish putting on record at least 1500 yoga postures by the end of 2009," said Dr V.P Gupta, of the CSIR, who created the Traditional Knowledge Digital Library.
