I Hope His Application Wasn't Denied

Ryan Thomas Grace (now a patent attorney) proposed to his girlfriend in 2003 by way of patent application:

40. The method of claim 37 wherein at least one claim of the patent application recites:

“Ellie I've been in love with you for the last five years. I've known this since the day we met and the time we've spent together since that day has only made me realize this fact more. You have been by my side in every way a person could possibly hope and I would like nothing more than to spend the rest of my life with you. Will you please marry me?”

41. The method of claim 37, wherein at least one claim of the patent application recites “Ellie if you will marry me, after reading the remainder of this patent application, open the other envelope and tell the limousine driver to take you to the airport.”

[via Boing Boing]

Baby Daddies Face the Music

As reported here, two lawyers have been granted a patent for genetic music—music "generated by decoding and transcribing genetic information within a DNA sequence." One of the suggested uses would have made the outcome of the Anna Nicole Smith paternity case so much more exciting.

An identity analyzer can be configured to provide an audible signal for a specific comparative result, for example, if the sample and the control differ, e.g., signaling an alarm in a security setting, or when they are the same, e.g., adding excitement to live television coverage of paternity determinations.

[Thanks again, Sally!]

If You Can't Grow Older, You Might As Well Molder

I first blogged about Swedes freeze-drying corpses back in 2005, but Nancy Bovy has alerted me that it's back in the news.

Swedish biologist Susanne Wiigh and her company Promessa have specialised in the freeze-drying method, and the company has applied for patents in 35 countries.

Promessa has promoted the idea of using the human remains, like compost, to feed plants and shrubs. [Link]

Wiigh's patent applications in the U.S. are titled "Method at mouldering" and "Method for treating organic matter to promote mouldering." The first includes this disconcerting passage:

[T]here is a belief that we shall return to earth, which is reflected in the expression "Earth to earth, ashes to ashes, dust to dust" of the burial ceremony, which provides the basis for all our life philosophy. Facts show, however, that we do not return to earth but flow away in liquid state.

Who Says Games Have to Be Fun?

Alvin O. Hall—the Milton Bradley of Cincinnati, Ohio—was granted a patent on Jan. 25, 1881, for a game based on the 1880 census. It was to be played on two identical maps of the United States with blocks bearing the names of 48 census subdivisions ("thirty-eight States, nine territories, and one district"), and a like number of blocks bearing the number of inhabitants in each subdivision.

Either player, for instance No. 1, turns up a block [...] so that the name of the State can be seen, and then both guess at the population in 1880, and the one that has nearest approached the true figure takes the block and places it upon the corresponding State, and if he fails the block is returned to the rest; but if he guessed correctly the block remains on his map until all the blocks have been placed on the map, the player having the most blocks on his map being the winner.

It is not known whether this game was actually inflicted upon the American public.

Gestate, Then Rotate

Ever heard the phrase, "I'm gonna hit you so hard your kids will be born dizzy"? A patent issued in 1965 for an Apparatus for Facilitating the Birth of a Child by Centrifugal Force made dizzy infants a real possibility. George and Charlotte Blonsky thought that their spinning invention would be welcomed by "civilized" women who lacked the necessary muscle development to speed childbirth along.

It is the primary purpose of the present invention to provide an apparatus which will assist the under-equipped woman by creating a gentle, evenly distributed, properly directed, precision-controlled force, that acts in unison with and supplements her own efforts.

[Hat tip: 2Spare, via Neatorama]

It's a Coffin AND a Life Preserver

Using Google Patents, I've turned up several inventions designed to prevent people from being buried alive, or to save people so interred. It appears that the most recent was patented in 1983, and the earliest—Coffin to be Used in Cases of Doubtful Death—in 1843.

Be it known that I, Christian Henry Eisenbrandt, of the city of Baltimore and State of Maryland, have invented a new and useful improvement in coffins, which I term a "life-preserving coffin in doubtful cases of death," and whereas there have been instances of human beings having been buried alive the inventor of this coffin has contrived an arrangement whereby any one who may not really have departed this life may by the slightest motion of either head or hand acting upon a system of springs and levers cause the instantaneous opening of the coffin-lid.

It is intended to place the above described coffin, with its inmate, in a vault, with a key to the vault deposited inside of its entrance, until decomposition takes place, so that should the person not really be dead, life may be preserved.

The Mother Lode of Invention

I am completely jazzed about the just-released Google Patent Search. This is a great improvement over the USPTO search engine, which still will be necessary to search patent applications.

What's especially wonderful is that Google has OCRed patents issued prior to 1976, making them searchable by surname, hometown, etc. If not for this development, I never would have known about Alford E. Jarvis' Method of Producing Human-Hair Scenery and Ornaments.

My invention relates to an improvement in a method of producing hair scenery and ornaments, and has for its object the preservation of the hair of a dead relative or friend in an artistic manner for making artistic hair-work.

You Can't Get Blood From a Slanderous Stone

Robert Barrows has received a patent for his Video Enhanced Gravemarker, and has issued a press release suggesting some possible implications of its use. Among Barrows' concerns is what will happen if a talking gravestone hurts someone's feelings.

"The Video Tombstone will also create some landmark free speech issues because how can you control what someone might say from beyond the grave?" he asks.

• And will it be truth or lies?
• What if someone confesses to a crime or makes an incrimination?
• What if they say something slanderous?
• What if they say something hurtful and cause emotional stress?
• What if they say something anti-governmental?
• Do the dead have free speech rights, too?
• And what can you do if they say something true or untrue about you?
• Can you pull the plug, and whom can you sue?
• Worse yet, how can you collect?

A Pre-Wright Flight in Georgia?

Descendants of a Georgia mountain man are convinced that he mastered flight decades before the Wright brothers took off. "I would just put my life on it that it's a true story," says Roma Sue Turner Collins, whose grandmother swore she saw Micajah Clark Dyer's contraption aloft.

Dyer's flying machine looked more like a boat carried by a balloon and the 19th-century inventor reportedly built rails up the side of Rattlesnake Mountain then slid the craft down the mountain, gathering speed to take off into a cornfield across a nearby creek.

Family members are hoping someone eventually will build a full-scale version of his machine, listed as Patent No. [1]54,654 as his "Apparatus for Navigating the Air." [Link]

Micajah, a man ahead of his time, also has his own blog.

Genius is 1% Inspiration, 12% Exhumation, 87% Perspiration

Joseph L. Kennedy of Holmes Beach, Florida, received a patent last month for his "System and method for retrieval of ancestral information." The invention calls for a medallion with a unique ID number to be permanently affixed to a headstone. The number is linked to an Internet database entry containing genealogical info on the grave's occupant. (Curiously, my similar invention of a genealogical database of the living using their Social Security numbers on medallions glued to their foreheads was shot down by the Patent Office.)

This is the most recent in a long line of contraptions meant to turn gravestones into kiosks. Among the "prior art" cited by Kennedy is a device that wirelessly transmits ancestral info from a stone to a remote receiver, but I think I prefer the low-tech approach of Scott C. Hobbs' 2001 invention, "Memorial Family Finder."

"Like a sticky-note for headstones!" says the HobbsHouse website—unfairly exploiting my love of sticking things to headstones. The Memorial Family Finder is simply a Plexiglas box with blank cards inside that one affixes to a headstone. Anyone who visits the stone can jot down her contact information, with the goal of finding long-lost relatives who frequent the same gravesite.

One caveat: Despite the assertion that the Memorial Family Finder is "scratch-resistant," I wouldn't try sticking it on one of those stones that lie flush with the ground. Riding lawn mowers have no respect for American ingenuity.

[tagged: genealogy, family tree, ancestry]

Send Your Loved Ones on a Cruise

From a 1995 patent for an "Interment vessel with directional capability":

There is a need for an interment device, at least for the benefit of the survivors, which retains the emotional benefits of dispersing the decedent's remains, e.g., sending the deceased to visit exotic far away places, or to occupy a favorite body of water after death, but wherein the survivors have a tangible item initially, as well as some expectation that after the deceased is dispatched this tangible item eventually will return the deceased to his loved ones for enshrinement. This need is satisfied by the device of the invention.

[snip]

The interment vessel has or defines an openable watertight ash containment urn. The vessel has a main body with one or more protrusions defining at least one sail, and a keel. The sail intersects at a right angle with the upper surface of the main body and is inclined relative to the keel so as to sail at a reach. When released in the water the vessel sails in the prevailing wind and current, to an eventual destination. The vessel can include instructions to the finder of the vessel and can provide for a reward in exchange for, or in anticipation of, return of the remains to the loved ones who dispatched them.

Genealogy Helpful in Case of Torture

From a 1985 patent for a "Basic comprehensive genealogical and family history system of straightline genealogy":

During the Korean situation, for instance, the Federal Government discovered that our men as prisoners of war who knew their family histories did not break under brainwashing conditions as did those men who did not know their family histories. A healthy knowledge of ones family history plays a part in improving stability and very possibility adding to mental health. One who feels himself to be a part of a chain develops a better sense of self-worth and purpose more easily than does a person who feels isolated and alone.

New Ways to Enliven Your Gravesite

From the The Beaver County (Pa.) Times/Allegheny Times:

Memorable trends
April Johnston, Times Staff
06/12/2005

The death industry hasn't changed much over the years. Most people get laid out and buried. It's solemn, it's simple, it's predictable.

Until now.

[snip]

[W]ith the growing popularity of genealogy, [monument dealers] Steckman and Dioguardi are recommending their clients not only carve the years of their birth and death into their gravestone, but the day and month, too.

[snip]

Enter Robert Barrows.

Barrows is a sculptor, television commercial producer, songwriter and author from San Mateo, Calif., who could soon add patent-holder to his resume.

He is in the process of patenting the "Video-Enhanced Grave Marker," a hollowed-out headstone that holds a computer chip and flat-screen TV, so people can record video messages before they die for loved ones and even strangers to watch - using remote controls and headsets - after they've passed. He estimates his invention would add $4,000 to the cost of a headstone.

[snip]

[Read the whole story]

Putting days and months on gravestones? Now, that's nuts.