Steve van Dulken's Patent blog

The Jarkey® bottle opener

Many companies specialise in the field of little tools to help with minor domestic tasks, such as opening jars. Arthritic hands can make this a nightmare.

I came across such a tool the other day. It said on it

JARKEY

PAT. PEND. DES. REG.

BRIX DESIGN

MADE IN DENMARK

The trade mark was registered in 1995 in the USA by Brix-Hansen of Denmark. Mysteriously, they have not taken the elementary precaution of registering Jarkey® in Europe through the international Madrid or Community systems let alone in the British system, even though it is so valuable as a marketing tool. 

The invention is called a Tool for breaking a vacuum in a preserving jar closed with a screw cap. Here is is main drawing.

 

It sounds very simple to me -- pressing down on the lever exerts pressure on the sealed cap of a jar and breaks the pressure seal, making it easier to then twist it open with your hands. Nevertheless it has been patented in Britain among other countries such as China, Canada and Poland.

There is also a British registered design for it, 2028129 . If it had been my invention I would have registered the trade mark in major countries and regions and not gone to the trouble and expense of patenting it and registering its appearance. People can use a (verbal) trade mark to ask for it on the telephone or on the Web, which is far harder with a patent number. It is also easier to prove use than when arguing over slightly different functions of competing products in a patent court case.

Sino-Japanese War game patent

Recently while looking for something else I stumbled across a patent for a game based on the Sino-Japanese War. This was the first war in which Japan fought a foreign country using modern methods and materials, in 1894-95. The conflict was over Korea, which Japan took over after a relatively easy campaign.

Newton Sample of Philadelphia in 1895 applied for his Game apparatus. It consisted of a shallow oblong container with a gun at one end, with a map of the campaign area (the Yellow Sea and surrounding land) with little flags. "Puppets" on hinges were present to represent armies. The only drawing is shown here.

 

As perceptive readers will have guessed, the gun was loaded with marbles which were fired across the board. I thought at first the trick was to knock over the puppets, but they were placed next to holes which represented towns or forts. Getting a marble in a hole meant that the place was captured and the puppet removed. As Sample pointed out, any adjacent countries could be used, and China and Japan were used for illustration. He suggested other pairings were Germany and France, or England and the United States (only separated by a few thousand miles, of course).

50th anniversary of the hovercraft

Today is the 50th anniversary of the unveiling of the hovercraft to the press, at the Saunders Roe boatyard at Cowes, Isle of Wight. 

Boatbuilder Sir Christopher Cockerell had come up with the idea after playing around with a cat food tin inside a coffee tin, an industrial air blower (altered to blow rather than suck) and a pair of kitchen scales. The key patent was filed in 1955, the Improvements in or relating to vehicles for travelling over land and/or water. Here are its main drawings.

The problem, though, was lots of spray and insufficient lifting power. Much of the force generated by directing the force downwards was going uselessly off to the sides. It was by using flexible segmented skirts round the bottom of the craft that ensured that the power was used effectively. The Improvements relating to means for bounding a space for receiving pressurised gas by Denys Bliss did this, and here are its main drawings.

 

Invention promoters

I've just seen an analysis by the IPKat website of Firefox Inventor and its invention competition and it makes interesting reading. It consists of comments interspersed in the text.

From time to time I am asked by private inventors about invention promotion companies -- the kind that offer to assist with commercialisation in return for, typically, upfront fees and a percentage of profits.

I would suggest caution when considering such offers. The contracts they put forward should be studied with care. One I looked at recently placed numerous, carefully worded obligations on the inventor and only vague obligations on the company, and said that the contract ended only if both parties agreed (so the inventor was unable to get out of it without the company's agreement). I've seen identically vague but enthusiastic wording about a variety of products from a number of such promoters -- surely some products aren't destined for huge sales ?

The UK IPO offers a Step-by-Step guide to using invention promoters. I would strongly endorse their suggestion that you get legal advice before entering into a contract. 

For the USA, there is a vast amount of comment, including the list of complaints about specific companies from the US Patent and Trademark Office, and there is a useful-looking Federal Trade Commission site.

Light-transmitting concrete

My March Patent of the Month column has appeared on the Ideas21 site, a little late, on Light-transmitting concrete.