Crawford IP Law

08/24/2022

On August 24, 1869, Cornelius Swartwout was awarded U.S. Patent No. 94,043 for a Waffle Irons. Swartwout was born in Westerlo, New York, and served in the Union Army during the American Civil War.

Waffles and wafers were cooked in ancient Greece. A few hundred years before Swartwout’s invention, the Dutch cooked waffles and wafers over open fires between hinged iron plates having long wooden handles. These irons were heavy and cumbersome, often resulting in either the user or the waffle being burned. In addition, the Dutch irons could not be opened easily to check whether the waffle was fully cooked.

Swartwout’s design allowed the iron to sit on a woodstove, but the iron could still be turned over to brown both sides of the waffle. The design also facilitated raising the upper half of the iron to pour batter into the iron and check the progress of the waffle as it cooked. And the improved design made the iron easier to handle, reducing the likelihood that the cook would be burnt.

08/17/2022

On August 17, 1993, Gary R. Burghoff was awarded U.S. Patent No. 5,235,755 for an enhanced fish attractor device. Gary Rich Burghoff was born in 1943 in Connecticut. After his family moved to Wisconsin, Burghoff studied tap dance and became a drummer, despite being born with three fingers on his left hand that were significantly smaller than those on his right hand. Later, he trained as an actor at HB Studio in New York City. In 1967, Burghoff portrayed the title character in the original Off-Broadway production of You're a Good Man, Charlie Brown.

In 1968, he was the drummer for The Relatives, in which Lynda Carter (“Wonder Woman”) was the singer. The band opened at the Sahara Hotel and Casino lounge in Las Vegas, Nevada, and continued performing there for three months.

Burghoff made his feature film debut in M*A*S*H (1970) in the role of Corporal Walter Eugene "Radar" O'Reilly, and was the only actor to continue as a regular on the television series of the same name. In 1977, Burghoff won an Emmy in the category of Outstanding Supporting Actor in a Comedy Series. Burghoff left M*A*S*H in 1979 to spend more time with his family but returned the following season for a special two-part farewell episode, "Goodbye Radar".

In addition to two patents for fish chumming devices, Burghoff was awarded design patents for a toilet seat lifting handle and for a fishing rod.

07/20/2022

On July 20, 1971, Henry A. Smolinski was awarded U.S. Design Patent No. D221,260 for the aesthetic appearance of a combined land and air vehicle. Two protypes of the vehicle were completed and three others were in production between 1971 and 1973. These prototypes were made by attaching part of a Cessna Skymaster airframe to a Ford Pinto. On August 26, 1973, shortly after its first flight test over Camarillo Airport in California, the right strut of the airframe detached from Pinto, forcing the test pilot to land in a nearby bean field. The pilot drove the otherwise undamaged vehicle back to the airport for repairs.

After repairs, Smolinski made a second test flight on September 11, 1973. Shortly after takeoff, the right strut detached from the Pinto again. This time the Pinto broke free from the airframe and plummeted to the ground with Smolinski and his co-founder, Hal Blake, in it, killing them instantly. The National Transportation Safety Board investigated the crash and determined poor design, poor weld quality, and numerous loose parts caused the crash. With both men dead, no further test flights were conducted, and their manufacturing company was liquidated.

The men envisioned driving a small economy car to an airport where the airframe would be attached. With the aircraft motor powering a propeller, the car engine powered the wheels during takeoff. The combined drive systems permitted the vehicle to take off on a short runway. Once in the air, the car engine was turned off and the aircraft engine powered the propeller during flight. During landing, brakes on all four wheels were used to stop the vehicle over a short distance. In addition to its short runway needs, the vehicle was inexpensive and had a cruise speed of about 130 mph.

Others have attempted to make combination automobiles and aircraft, but as of today none have successfully brought such a craft to market.

07/13/2022

On July 13, 1836, John Ruggles was awarded U.S. Patent No. 1 for traction wheels. Ruggles was born in Massachusetts 1789 and attended public school before attending the College in the English Colony of Rhode Island and Providence Plantations (now Brown University). Ruggles studied law and was admitted to the bar in 1815. He started a law practice in Maine, but moved to Thomaston, Massachusetts, after two years. In 1823, Ruggles was elected to the Maine House of Representatives where he eventually served as speaker. In 1831, he was appointed as a justice of the supreme judicial court of Maine where he served until 1834 when the state legislature elected Ruggles to the U.S. Senate to fill a vacancy. Although he was elected for an additional six-year term, he was not elected for a second six-year term.

While in the U.S. Senate, Ruggles wrote a bill to reorganize the Patent Office in 1836. After a fire destroyed all prior patents at the Patent Office, the Office restarted patent numbers at 1. Perhaps to express gratitude for the bill or knowing that Ruggles would be chairman of the Senate Committee on Patents and Patent Office a few months later, the Commissioner of Patents awarded Ruggles Patent No. 1. Readers may know there were about 10,000 patents that issued before No. 1. Those patents are known as X-patents because they are assigned a number preceded by an X.

Ruggles invention was a locomotive wheel designed to reduce the “evil effects” of weather on traction, allowing locomotives to climb steep hills.

In retirement, Ruggles resumed the practice of law in Thomaston and made several more inventions. He died in 1874 just before his 85th birthday.

06/29/2022

On June 29, 1954, R. Buckminster Fuller was awarded U.S. Patent No. 2,682,235 for a building construction. Born on July 12, 1895, in Milton, Massachusetts, Fuller was an American architect, author, designer, and futurist. Fuller wrote thirty books, popularized the geodesic dome, and obtained 28 patents during his life. Most of these patents, like the '325 patent, relate to architectural designs.

Although Fuller studied at Harvard College, he did not earn a degree. Rather, he was expelled twice – first for carousing with a vaudeville troupe and spending all of his money, and second for "irresponsibility and lack of interest". For the first part of his life, Fuller had similar experiences holding a job. In 1927, after the death of a daughter and losing a job, Fuller sank into depression, spending most of his time drunk and walking the streets of Chicago. While contemplating drowning himself in Lake Michigan so his family could benefit from his life insurance, he had a white light experience that shifted his perspective toward using his considerable mental prowess to “benefiting all humanity".

By 1928, Fuller was living in Greenwich Village and giving lectures about his dymaxion house concept. The house was to be lightweight, inexpensive, and transportable so a family of modest means could own one and move it wherever they found work. The house had a central post set vertically in the ground. The roof and floor were suspended from the post and tethered to the ground. Inside were two bedrooms and two bathrooms, a kitchen, a dining room, and a living room. Fuller built just two of these houses. In 1929, Fuller designed the dymaxion car with Isamu Noguchi.

During the summers of 1948 and 1949, Fuller taught at a Summer Institute at Black Mountain College in North Carolina. There, with the support of professors and students, Fuller built a geodesic dome based on a design by German engineer Walther Bauersfeld. Bauersfeld built his dome in 1925 and received a German patent. Bauersfeld's dome had a concrete skin. Fuller’s dome was constructed of aluminum tubing and had a vinyl skin. Fuller applied for a U.S. Patent for his geodesic dome in 1951, resulting in the ‘235 patent.

In 1954, Fuller founded Geodesics, Inc. in Raleigh, North Carolina, to make small domes under a contract from the Marines. Within a few years, there were thousands of domes around the world. In 1964, Fuller and Shoji Sadao founded an architectural firm whose first project was to design a large dome for the U.S. Pavilion at Montreal's Expo 67. Fuller landed a job at Southern Illinois University Carbondale, where he only had to be resident two months of the year. In 1968, Fuller was promoted to professor at SIU. In 1972, Fuller moved to SIU-Edwardsville until his retirement in 1975. Buckminster Fuller died on July 1, 1983, in Los Angeles.

06/22/2022

On June 22, 1832, John Ireland Howe was awarded U.S. Patent No. 7123X for a pin making machine. Born in Ridgefield, Connecticut, in 1703, Howe trained as a doctor and worked as a resident physician at the New York Almshouse. After leaving his position at the poorhouse, Howe invented a process for preparing rubber compounds in 1828. Although he obtained a patent for the process, he was unable to find a buyer for his process. Rather than giving up, Howe turned his mind to mechanizing the manufacture of a product that had always been made by hand.

While working at the poorhouse, Howe saw residents making pins by hand using a multistep procedure. As Adam Smith described in The Wealth of Nations, pin makers usually divided the steps among a group of workers, each worker performing one of the steps of the procedure. Howe conceived one machine that performed all the steps. That machine is the subject of today’s Wednesday patent.

Howe’s machine included a rotating mechanism that carried the product from one station to the next. Each station performed one step of the pin making process. For example, wire fed into the first station was cut to an appropriate length before being carried to the next station.

A few months after obtaining his patent, Howe founded the Howe Manufacturing Company, which made pins in New York City. In 1836, Howe moved operations to Derby, Connecticut, and by 1836 his factory had three pin making machines, each of which made 24,000 pins per day. As with many nascent industries, Howe’s pins initially were not cheaper to make than those made by hand, so he lobbied Congress to impose a tariff on his British competitors' goods. Howe retired wealthy in 1865 and lived for another twelve years in Derby.

Why does Howe’s patent number include an X in it? Longtime followers may recall that the Patent Office burned on December 15, 1836, destroying all prior patent records. When the Patent Office began issuing patents again on July 13, 1836, it began with Patent No. 1. The Patent Office requested the public to send in copies of patents they had so the destroyed records could be restored. As patents were recovered, the office reissued the earlier patents and added an X to the numbers. The first U.S. Patent was reissued as X1. All subsequent recovered patents are assigned a number ending in an X. When the office reissued Howe’s patent, it made a typographical error, identifying his middle initial as J., when it should have been I.

06/15/2022

On June 15, 1880, brothers, Frederick and Otto F. Kampfe, were awarded U.S. Patent No. 228,904 for a safety razor. Otto Kampfe emigrated from Saxony, Germany, in 1872 to join his brother Frederick in Brooklyn, New York, where they opened a cutlery business. At the time, most men shaved with straight razors or prudently sported facial hair, like President Ulysses S. Grant and the failed insurrectionist, Robert E. Lee.

After suffered one too many lacerations, Frederick modified his straight razor in 1875 by cutting its blade off and fashioning a frame to hold the blade. The brothers began producing their new razor for friends and customers of their shop and filed an application resulting in today’s Wednesday patent.

In 1885, the brothers formed the Star Safety Razor Company with a third brother, Richard. The Star razor met with tremendous success, particularly after Oliver Wendell Holmes Sr. extolled its virtues in an article for Atlantic magazine published in 1887. The Kampfes' success gave rise to many imitators, one of which was King Camp Gillette who filed for his first razor patent in December 1901. By that time, dozens of other patents applications for safety razors had issued.

So, who invented the safety razor? Prior to the Kampfes’ entry, numerous folks added a guard, usually a comb-like attachment, to a straight razor to limit the depth it could cut. These guard razors remain available today, but they are not what we think of as a safety razor. In 1847, an English engineer named William S. Henson filed a U.K. patent for a guard razor having a handle that extended perpendicular to the blade like a garden rake. This was probably the first razor that bore a resemblance to today’s safety razors, but Henson did not file for a U.S. patent. The first U.S. patent directed to a safety razor was awarded to the Kampfes. Gillette’s 1901 razor patent featured a reusable holder that held a thin, double-edged blade. Gillette was able to offer his razor holder at a discount, because in doing so he created repeat customers to whom he sold replacement blades in packs.

06/08/2022

On June 8, 1920, Edwin H. Armstrong was awarded U.S. Patent 1,342,885 for method of receiving high frequency oscillations.

Armstrong graduated from Columbia with an electrical engineering degree in 1913. Following graduation, he continued to work at Columbia and was appointed as a Professor of Electrical Engineering at Columbia in 1934.

Although Lee de Forest invented the triode vacuum-tube in 1906, there was very little understanding of how they worked. Armstrong began studying the tubes during his undergraduate years and found that by providing positive feedback ("regeneration"), they amplified input signal hundreds of times more than previously possible. In 1913, Armstrong applied for patent protection, and received the patent in 1914. After originally discounting Armstrong's work, de Forest began filing patent applications claiming he discovered regeneration. Armstrong sued de Forest's company in district court and won, but de Forest filed an interference proceeding at the patent office which reached a different conclusion. To fund the litigation, Armstrong granted several radio equipment firms non-commercial licenses at royalties of 5% and sold Westinghouse Electric an option for the commercial rights for $535,000. At one point during the interference, de Forest offered to withdraw but Armstrong refused without being compensated. Had he accepted, Armstrong would not have lost his regeneration patent rights to de Forest.

After World War I, Armstrong developed the superheterodyne radio receiver circuit, which made radio receivers more sensitive and selective. The circuit is still used extensively. Today's '885 patent is directed to the superheterodyne circuit. Armstrong sold the patent to Westinghouse. The patent was challenged in another patent office interference. Unable to prove that he made the discovery first, Armstrong ultimately lost the interference.

While he was preparing apparatus to counter arguments made during the regeneration lawsuit, Armstrong accidentally discovered super-regeneration, which allowed even greater levels of amplification. A year later, in 1922, Armstrong sold his super-regeneration patent to RCA for $200,000 plus 60,000 shares of corporation stock. RCA later increased the shares to 80,000 for consulting services, making Armstrong RCA's largest shareholder.

AM radio signals are plagued by static interference. After others gave up on FM to solve the problem, Armstrong began secretly researching FM in 1928. Where others had tried “narrow-band” FM, Armstrong developed "wide-band" FM for which he received five U.S. patents covering FM's basic features in 1933. After RCA chose not to invest in FM because it was spending vast sums to develop television, Armstrong decided to finance FM development himself. The Great Depression stalled adoption of FM. In 1940, RCA offered Armstrong $1,000,000 for a non-exclusive, royalty-free license to use his FM patents, but Armstrong refused, feeling it would be unfair to other licensees that were paying 2% royalties.

Stressed by years of litigation, financial problems, and an impasse in negotiating a license with RCA, Armstrong picked up a fireplace poker during an argument with his wife and hit her arm with it. She moved out of their apartment, and Armstrong jumped to his death shortly afterward. After his su***de, his wife, Marion, took over negotiations with RCA and within months reached a settlement of about $1,000,000. Marion Armstrong also brought numerous infringement lawsuits over his initial five FM patents, establishing Edwin as the inventor of FM.

06/01/2022

In June 1, 1920, the U.S. Patent Office awarded Ernest A. Hamwi U.S. Patent 1,342,045 for an apparatus used to make ice cream cones.

Hamwi, a Syrian emigrant born in Damascus, invented the ice cream cone in 1904 while being a concessionaire at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis, Missouri. Hamwi sold zalabiyeh, a Middle Eastern fritter made from a thin wheat flour batter poured into hot oil, which is traditionally eaten by Muslims during Ramadan. Hamwi’s booth was adjacent to Arnold Fornachou, an ice cream vendor. Ice cream was so popular in the heat of the St. Louis summer that Fornachou ran out of dishes. Seeing a solution, Hamwi rolled a zalabiyeh into a cone before allowing it to cool so it kept its shape. Hamwi offered the cone to Fornachou to serve his ice cream in. The ice cream cone was born.

After the fair, Hamwi founded the Cornucopia Waffle Company in St. Louis. In 1910, he founded the Missouri Cone Company, later known as the Western Cone Company. In addition to rolled cones, a second type of cone was poured into a mold and baked over a burner before separating the mold to reveal the finished cone. In 1918, Hamwi filed a patent application for such a mold, which resulted in the ‘045 patent.

According to some folks, Italo Marchiony, an Italian emigrant living in New York City, invented the ice cream cone in 1896. Marchiony was granted U.S. Patent 746,971 in December 1903. Marchiony’s patent is directed to a mold for making cups from a “specially-prepared paste”, presumably an edible batter. The patent calls the product a cup and illustrates a flat-bottomed bowl having a handle. Rather than cone-shaped, Marchiony’s product might be described as teacup-shaped. Clearly, this is not a cone.

Some cite Agnes B. Marshall, the Victorian English Martha Stewart as inventing the ice cream cone. Marshall published Mrs. A.B. Marshall’s Cookery Book in 1888. Recipe #284 describes Almond Gauffres [sic] (i.e., French waffles), which she suggested forming into small cones or open-ended cylinders. Marshall also suggested filling the shapes “with whipped cream seasoned with vanilla, orange flowers, or maraschino,” and placing some strawberries on the top. These confections were common in the 1700s in England where they were called cornets, in Scotland where they were called pokes, and in the American colonies where they were called cornucopias. She also noted, “they are sometimes garnished with vanilla cream-ice.” Garnishing a whipped cream filled almond cornucopia with ice cream does not an ice cream cone make.

Others have laid claim to inventing the ice cream cone, but Hamwi is widely regarded as the inventor, and in the 1950s, the International Association of Ice Cream Manufacturers named Ernest Hamwi the official creator of the ice cream cone.

05/25/2022

05/25/2022

On May 25, 1844, Stuart Perry was awarded U.S. Patent No. 3597 for an inflammable v***r engine. Perry graduated from Union College in 1837 and started a produce business with his brother-in-law and his brother, mostly making cheese and butter, in 1840.

Perry held numerous patents. Patent No. 3597 describes a vertical two-cycle engine having a single cylinder. The engine combusted v***rized turpentine to drive the piston. Two years later he received a patent for a water-cooled version of this engine. Neither engine was a commercial success. But was Perry's engine the first internal combustion engine in America?

Some commentators claim Samuel Morey received a U.S. patent for an internal combustion engine in 1826. Morey's engine vented combusted turpentine v***r before injecting water into the hot cylinder. A water jacket surrounding the cylinder cooled the injected water, creating a vacuum that pulled the piston. Referring to Morey's device as an internal combustion engine is not technically correct. Conventionally, the term "internal combustion engine" refers to an engine that uses hot gases produced by combustion to drive a piston or do other work. That definition does not describe Morey's device. Some commentators note Morey theorized the explosion could be used to drive the piston directly, but he did not reduce the concept to practice. Under U.S. patent law, an invention requires both conception and reduction to practice.

05/18/2022

On May 18, 1920, the United States Patent and Trademark Office awarded Floyd Smith U.S. Patent No. 1,340,423 for a parachute. James Floyd Smith was a cowboy, machinist, orange grower, and sugar factory worker before becoming a trapeze artist. In 1907, Smith married fellow circus daredevil, Hilder Youngberg. They built a family and in 1912 built an airplane together. Floyd began working as a mechanic and test pilot for aircraft manufacturer, Glenn L. Martin, in 1914.

That same year Martin was seeking a female parachutist to jump at the opening ceremonies of the Los Angeles Harbor. Although she had never parachuted before, Hilder agreed to jump twice during the ceremonies. In exchange Martin would loan her an airplane so Floyd could teach her how to fly. While Martin flew over the bay for Hilder's second jump, she slipped and fell out of the airplane.

Parachutes of the day used static lines connected to the aircraft that pulled the chute from its pack when a jumper had cleared the aircraft. Because Hilder was tumbling when her chute opened, she became entangled in its lines. Hilder was able to untwist the parachute lines in time to land safely on the beach. After watching Hilder's canopy fill at a mere 250 feet over the ground, Floyd set to designing a freefall parachute that a jumper could control with a rip cord.

Floyd applied for a patent on his freefall parachute design in July 1918 and founded the Floyd Smith Aerial Equipment Company. Although military leaders rejected parachutes during World War I, the U.S. Army Air Service formed a parachute research team in Dayton, Ohio, a month after the armistice. Soon the parachute research team recruited Floyd, who was working as a civilian test pilot for the Air Service. In the spring of 1919, the research team tested 17 different parachute designs from inventors around the world and chose a slightly modified version of Floyd’s design.

After the team testing Floyd's parachute using dummies, fellow research teammate, Leslie Irvin, volunteered to make the first jump. On April 28, 1919, with Floyd piloting the plane, Irvin jumped. The parachute successfully opened, Irvin safely landing, and Floyd filed a patent application for the modified version of the parachute on the same day.

Irvin and Floyd competed for the first War Department parachute contract and Irvin won with a lower bid. Floyd’s company sued Irvin’s company for infringement and won, but the court did not award damages because the parachutes were made under government contract. Before Floyd could sue, the government paid him for the manufacturing rights. Floyd assigned the patent to Irvin’s company, which was the primary government parachute supplier for many years.

Floyd continued to invent parachute improvements and his company became the leading parachute producer during World War II. Floyd obtained 33 patents during his lifetime.