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England Salutes 150 Years of Eccentric Patents
jonerik writes "Want to patent a moustache protector? Or perhaps you've hit upon the idea of improving chickens' lives by giving them eyeglasses. Well, don't bother - they've already been invented. The BBC has this piece today on the bizarre ideas that have trickled into the U.K. Patent Office on a regular basis since it opened 150 years ago this month. Other doozies which are saluted are a rifle fitted into a helmet, 'the recoil [of which] broke a man's neck during early trials' and the parachute hat. According to Steve van Dulken, who oversees the patent archive at the British Library, 'For every 100 applications lodged, I'd say that 10 are a bit whacky.'"
has finally figured out step 2 for the underwear gnomes:
1. Steal underwear
2. Get wacky Brittish Patent
3. Profit!
III.IIVIVIXIIVIVIIIVVIIIIXVIIIXIIIIIIIIVIIIIVVIII
m00.
My favourite is the patent about attaching a wind turbine to the roof of your car to take advantage of a resource that, otherwise, goes completely to waste :-)
the phrase "dead ringer" has a similar origin: they'd set up a bell above ground and tie a string or something to it when they buried someone, who could ring the bell and alert everyone that they would like to be dug up as they weren't dead . . .
track7.org has all kinds of interesting stuff!
...and 100 years later, geeks are still having trouble figuring out just exactly how to remove the damn things.
Correction: I should say, Just exactly how to get near the damn things.
There is no spork.
I heard that during the civil war they cut down on these "presumed deaths" by shipping bodies in air tight coffins.
If you weren't dead when you were put in, You were by the time your body arrived home!
In the future, I would want to not be isolated from my friends in the Space Station.
Among these was a cat flap connected to an atomic bomb in space. The device was fitted with a colour sensor, designed to admit his ginger cat but block the passage of a neighbour's black moggie
:)
Hmm. Looks Like This Company is Infringing on a patent
In Soviet Russia, Trojan exploits YOU!
The terrorists will pick them up, put them on and run into battle with American Forces(TM). First shot fired; they fall to the ground with a broken neck! War over!
America's Freedom Force(TM) - 1, Axis of Evil(TM) - 0.
Game Over, man
This idea is patent pending ©2002 Teamhasnoi. Unauthorized use will be turned over to Panip, Inc.
When I was young(er), we had a game that included much of these patents. It was titled "Inventors" or "The Incredible Machine" or something. Each invention was on a card, and had a certain base value. You could buy patents from each other, roll the dice right and get into the "royalty track", have silent partners investing in your holdings, and best of all it came with a little machin that rolled the dice for you and rang a little bell.
It was all in a turn-of-the-century theme, and was a lot of fun. Perhaps a modern version of the game could include Rambus-style tactics...nah. If we'd had that, my sisters would have started pulling each others hair, and someone would be running crying to Mom.
One of my favorite inventions was the automatic hat-tipper.
...
When I first read the title, I thought England was saluting 150 years of eccentric PARENTS.
IP law isn't as bad as you think, just imagine the safe and secure world we'd be living in today if this evil technology had remained a secret.
You do realize that if the patent had been granted, it would have disseminated the information more *widely*, due to the fact that patents are available for anyone to read?
You also realize that a cyclotron is about as useful for making nuclear weapons as pocket lint would be?
I know, I know, IHBT...
Lawrence reportedly got the idea for the cyclotron after looking at the pictures in a foreign (German?) engineering journal. An engineer had come up with the idea of making high voltages by linking pairs of cylinders at opposite phase of a HV AC cycle into a line. Lawrence basically coiled the idea up into a circle. The fact that charged particles in a magnetic field always circulate with the same period allows this to work efficiently.
It is claimed that Leo Szilard independently came up with this idea about 6 months before, but didn't do anything with it.
Moderators, realize this guy is a troll and nowhere close to a "Physics Genius".
The first cyclotron patent was awarded to Ernest Lawrence in 1934, after being prompted to file for the patent by investors and being told that another scientist at Raytheon was about to patent the same thing.
Search Google, you'll find that there is nothing that indicates a cyclotron patent was rejected for any such reason.
Since there was a patent granted on the cyclotron, the rest of your arguments fall apart. Not surprising since they're full of shit.
Moderators - feel free to mod me down. But mod down the idiot parent post first.
Four words: IP over pneumatic tube.
Here
I especially like the "Horse Masturbation Preventer". (Seriously, look at the page!)
If you're rich, you can be eccentric. If you are poor, you're just crazy. :)
This is the reason we have a Great Britain team at the olympics, the Northern Irish are part of the Eire team.
In summary:
The company commander sported a goatee & a long moustache. He made the facial hair a part of the uniform for his men. Troops had to keep the moustaches trained, they had to have the proper upward curve, and protected at night. To accomplish this, they were all given a moustache protector that they were required to wear at night. They were taught during basic training to tie it just right to achieve the proper look.
When my father got back home after the war, he threw his uniform, boots & everything else into the river. Somehow the moustache protector survived, travelling from Germany to Czechoslavakia where he barely survived an ambush, a POW camp in Poland, back home to Hungary, to East Germany, West Germany, and finally to the US.
"Glory is fleeting, but obscurity is forever." --Napoleon Bonaparte
...And I tried to submit a story about it at the time. I guess jonerik has more luck than me.
My origonal submission, I think it is still relevant:
The Japanese have managed to publish 3 books focusing on whacky inventions. They, however, refuse to admit to the whackiness, hence the title "Unuseless".
(This post does not contain emoticons or l337.)
You're wrong. Any power you can generate from this will cause at least as much drag - probably more because of the inevitable inefficiencies of generating and distributing power.
Mmmm.. Donuts