Steve van Dulken's Patent blog

American patriotism patents in World War I

Every war provokes patriotic inventions, as I noted in my posting on the Boer War.

World War I was certainly no exception. When I researched my last book, Inventing the American Dream (published in the USA as American Inventions), I spent many happy hours scanning the Design Patents in the American official gazette during the American involvement in both world wars. This is really the only way to research them, as patriotic playing cards, for example, are indexed simply as playing cards by the classification.

The image shown here has been captured from the valuable Google Patents website. The only way of finding it was to insert as search terms its Design number, 51574, together with the word design. It shows Uncle Sam as the King in a pack of cards,

I didn't note the numbers at the time, but noticed similarly patriotic designs for combs, finger rings, pins (a big favourite), car radiators, easels, lampshades and photograph holders, another popular topic.

Uncle Sam turns up again as a proud eagle statue, by Mary Harris of San Francisco. This is Design Patent 51415.

Then there was Design 52871, which shows a child wrapped in the flag while stamping on the Kaiser, with "Kaiser's Finish" at the bottom of the statue. 

There were also the usual board games, such as the Game Apparatus which was called "Kop the Kaiser", which involved a race to Berlin.

There is also a toy, called Target, which is unfortunately missing from the Espacenet database. It is patent 1305653 and shows an American corporal striking a bemused Kaiser on the head.

All these can be searched for on the Google database... as the numbers are known.

The Hawk-Eye® system at Wimbledon tennis

It's the first day of the Wimbledon tennis open, and it's a lovely day for strawberries and cream. In a few hours television viewers will be watching the Video Processor Systems for Ball Tracking in Ball Games technology, Hawk-Eye®, on their televisions.

This is the system that enables animated replays of points, so that the viewer sees if the ball was truly in or out. It works by using 12 cameras situated around the court which feed into a system that determines where the ball was at any one time, and extrapolates its flight. Here is its main drawing.

The technology was devised by Roke Manor Research Limited of Romsey, Hampshire, and can be used for other sports, such as cricket (as shown in the drawing). The technology has been spun off into a new company, Hawk-Eye Innovations Limited.

The LZR Racer® swimsuit by Speedo

Speedo, the British swimsuit company, issued a press release in February to mark the launch of their new LZR Racer® swimsuit. What I believe are the patent applications for the new drag-saving technology were only published last Wednesday.

These are GB2444803 and GB2444804, both titled "Sports garment". The first is for a double layer of stretchable elasticated fabric which improve the swimmer's posture when tired so that the body does not sag, and stays streamlined. The second is for laminated panels placed on the outer surface of the base layer of the same fabric, which apparently also reduces drag. Here is the main drawing from GB2444804.

The results, say experts, is an improvement of 2% in performance with the new swimsuits -- a lot in competitive swimming. It was recently pointed out that 41 world records in swimming had been broken since February -- with 37 by swimmers wearing the new swimsuit. Many of the record breakers had not previously been highly rated. Normally only half a dozen records or so would have been broken in the same time period.

The new swimsuit is approved for use at the Beijing Olympics, where no doubt many more records will fall.

Flying saucer inventions

I opened this morning's Metro free newspaper on the train to find an article on page 17 called "Building a better UFO". According to it, Subrata Roy, a professor at the University of Florida, has "patented" a flying saucer invention.

As so often in the media this is not quite right. In February Professor Roy had a patent application published (it awaits grant).  His Wingless Hovering of Micro Air Vehicle has no moving parts and depends on the generation of plasma, which has an electric current put in it, to keep it aloft. The article says that a light and powerful energy source to do this is needed. Apparently both the US Air Force and NASA are interested. Here is its main drawing.

The article also mentions that British Rail applied for a flying saucer patent in 1970. This interesting attempt to move into other modes of transport is well known, perhaps notorious, in the patent world. This is the main drawing from their Space Vehicle patent. 

 

The article also mentions Paul Moller, whose recent Improved Vertical Take-off and Landing Vehicles have actually flown, but not more than a few metres up if I remember (to avoid violating FAA regulations on what is an aircraft), and also Avro Aircraft's Vertical Take-Off Aircraft from 1954.  Here are its main drawings.

I wish I could say that I've ever been commissioned to search for similar inventions, but sadly no.

Keeping cool in the Underground

June's Patent of the Month has been put up on the Ideas21 website. It is on the subject of keeping cool in the Underground, or subway.

Wide-field imaging of the retina

Last Saturday's Daily Telegraph ran a story about Douglas Anderson, a product designer who was inspired to work on an invention after a tragic occurrence in his family. His five-year old son, Leif, had a retinal detachment, and lost the sight of one eye. He had had regular eye checkups, but as he refused the stinging eye drops to dilate the pupil any early signs had not been picked up. The optician had not been able to carry out a proper examination.

Anderson regarded the contemporary examination of the eye as primitive. He wondered if a digital wide-field image could be made of the retina without using eyedrops.

This was back in 1990, and Anderson had problems getting financing for the idea. Finally Archangels Informal Investment supplied money, convinced by his passion.

The article mentions that the invention is patented but not, it seems, with Anderson himself as an inventor. The company he set up, Optos, was formed in 1992 and is based in Dunfermline, Scotland. It was not until 2006 that a patent application was made for Improvements in or relating to scanning ophthalmoscopes and then for Improvements in or relating to retinal scanning.

So far 3,500 devices have been installed, says the story, and quotes a UCLA researcher into diabetes, Steven Schwartz, who says it is a "truly revolutionary technology". The company website shows that the company began to go into profit in 2007 - clearly a long haul for the investors.

Tarsier® radar at Heathrow airport

I've just noticed a BBC news story on the installation of QinetiQ's Tarsier® radar at Heathrow airport. It is apparently so good that it could notice a cotton reel on a runway, using high resolution, hence of course reducing the chances of airplanes hitting debris.

There are two Patent Cooperation Treaty applications from the company using the word "debris" in their summaries. These are Frequency modulated continuous wave (FMCW) radar having improved frequency sweep linearity , whose main drawing is shown below, and Coherent frequency modulated continuous wave radar. 

I can't say it means much to me but it adds a lot to the BBC story for electronics engineers, at least.

Perpetual motion inventions

I enjoy reading the IP-KAT blog, which mostly covers British and European court cases in intellectual property. Today a different sort of posting caught my eye.

It is called UK-IPO gets tougher on perpetual motion (the UK-IPO being what used to be called the Patent Office). It is about case O/156/08, an internal hearing at the IPO where the "tetchy" examiner refused to grant a patent for what he considered a perpetual motion machine. The application was published as a Variable volume bouyancy engine. Here is its main drawing.

Very usefully, the examiner listed previous cases in the same court where perpetual motion machines were refused, and the blog has kindly converted them into links to those decisions. Useful reading for anyone interested in the subject -- and yes, many patent applications in the subject do get published, and sometimes as granted patents.

Uniquely, I think, they are described in the patent classification in Latin: "alleged perpetua mobilia". The different varieties are listed together within class F03B17/00.

War games from the Boer War

Last August I posted about war games from World War II. This time it's about toys and games from the (Second) Boer War (1899-1902).

They are of considerable interest for social historians. In date order, they are:

A new or improved puzzle or game, by Frederick Dunkin of Oxford, surgeon dentist.  We know that that was his occupation as until about 1921 British patents usually gave the occupation of private inventors. The playing pieces had to be moved about so that the "Imperial and colonial forces" occupied Pretoria and the Transvaal and Orange Free State forces were in the prison.

Next is An improved toy or puzzle by Bertie Scott of Bruges, Belgium, gentleman.  The game -- if you can call it that -- involves locking or unlocking the figure, which in the drawing is quite clearly President Kruger of the Transvaal Republic.

Next is A new or improved game for two players by John Reid of Glasgow, architect. Unfortunately it lacks any drawings. The board game was called Patriotism, and was considered to be a tactical game, where you simply had to get your three "men" in a straight line to win the game. One side was the British, the other the Boers, and nine South African towns were marked on the board. Reid called it a "souvenir of South Africa, year 1900 A.D."

The last one I traced was GB19662/1900, which is missing from the database. It is a board with squares making up a grid with a South African town at each corner where small armies fight according to rules. The inventor was from Dunedin, New Zealand.

As so often happens these all date from 1900, before war weariness set in. I find these inventions fascinating as examples of the mind set of the time.

Anti dozing alarms

I've been looking through the 2007 annual review of the UK Intellectual Property Office, and it has reminded me that the Waker-Upper 3000 was the winner of the 2007 Cracking ideas Competition. It was designed by nine and ten-year olds at a school in Devon, and the idea is to keep the user awake when doing homework.

There are in fact numerous patents for inventions that prevent dozing, mainly for the sake of drivers or pilots, or for operators of machinery. G08B21/06 is the class for "anti-dozing alarms", and can be used in the popular Espacenet® database's advanced search page. Enter the class in the bottom, IPC search box and you are away.

Adding for example US (in the publication number box) limits the search to American patent publications, GB limits to British and so on.

I haven't looked at more than a few of the hundreds of patents, but many clearly involve monitoring the closing of eyes for obvious reasons.  They include the illustrated Monitoring Drowsiness patent by Loadpoint Limited of Swindon, Wiltshire. I also like the Driver Drowsiness Monitor and Recognition System by a private inventor from Coventry.