Patent Pending Blog - Patents and the History of Technology

Franklin's Jet Boat

American scientist Benjamin Franklin developed a plan for a jet boat, powered by a hand pump.  Water would be drawn into a pump, then expelled out a nozzle to the rear of the boat.  The boat would thus be a jet boat, a concept which was taken up again some 200 years later.

 

New Eminent Domain Powers

Is it karma, or Just Plain Mean?

Hot off the press: from Weare, New Hampshire, Logan Darrow Clements faxed a request to the Towne of Weare, NH, seeking an application to build a hotel at 34 Chilley Hill Road, presently the home of Justice David Souter.  He seeks the approval of three of the five members of the Board of Selectmen, which would allow him to condemn Souter's home, persuant to the  court ruling Souter just authored on behalf of the court majority.   The controversy of the decision is that it authorizes governments to condemn private property for the benefit of another private individual, not just for the public good such as for roads and schools.

The proposed Lost Liberty Hotel will feature the "Just Desserts restaurant" and a museum featuring material on the decline of freedom.   Clements has interested investors ready to draw up plans.  It would generate more revenue for the town, which is sufficient cause, according to Souter's decision, to jusify the taking.

That could be a fun one to watch!

The First Patent in the New World

The first patent in America was granted in 1646 to a Mr. Joseph Jenkes by the General Court of Massechusets, was to protect his scyth mill from competition.  Patents in the early days were not to benefit  an inventor,  as they are now.  They were to encourage a businessman or industrialist to invest in a shop or mill, by extending to him a monopoly for a period of time.  At times, they even rewarded the businessman who stole industrial secrets from a foreign operation, in order to get that technology at work in the colonies or later, in the U.S.

The patent to Jenkes appears to be in that tradition, and relates to his establishment of a water mill, and reads:

At a generall Courte at Boston
the 6th of the 3th m^o 1646

The Co^rt considringe y^e necessity of raising such manifactures of
engins of mils to go by water for speedy dispatch of much worke wth few hands, F.r being sufficiently informed of y^e ability of y^e petition^r to pforme such workes grant his petition (y^t no oth^r pson shall set up, or use any such new invention, or trade for fourteen yeares w'hout y^e licence of him y^e said Joseph Jenkes) so farr as concernes any such new invention, & so as it shalbe alwayes in y^e pow^r of this Co^rte to restrain y^e exportation of such manifactures, & y^e prizes of them to moderation if occasion so require.

 

In the original, it looked like this:

Combined Shifter and Brake Lever

In the old days when I did a lot of cycling (the 70's and 80's) the bikes had shift levers on the down tube of the bike, the tube that angles from the headset down to the crank area.  The shift levers wound be conveniently (we thought) mounted there, and a quick adjustment on the right or left lever would shift the front or rear derailluer.  Then along came shifters on the end of the handlebar, the so called plug end shifters.  Then something really great came out, and that was shifters in which the shift levers were built  into the brake hood, so you can shift the gears without moving your hands from brake hood.  The first combination brake lever and shift lever seems to have been patented by Joel Evett in 1978.  It sure would be fun to know if he licensed his patent to one of the big bike companies. 

Interesting Project on Ebay

You are bidding on a completely disassembled Canon A70 3.2 Megapixel point and shoot digital camera.  This item is sold As Is.  No warranties expressed or implied. No returns no exchanges no refunds.  Bid on this items if you are iterested in having spare parts for your A70 ,  if you like to tinker or if you want to play a practical joke on your favorite Canon A70 owner.  Before I took it  apart, the lens mechanism and screen were working properly but some of the controls were unresponsive. The case sustained some damage during disassembly. This item does not include a memory card or batteries.

Ericson's Propeller

The idea of using a modified screw to propel a ship had been proposed as early as 1752.  John Fitch experimented with a screw propeller before his steam paddle boat.  Both the Bushnell (1777) and Fulton (1797) submarines used propellers.  Of course a paddlewheel would not make sense for an underwater boat, so propellers were mandatory on submarines. 

Several experiments were made with different versions of a screw propeller.  These assumed that a ship could be propelled not by sail, oars, or paddlewheels, but by a modified version of the Archimedes screw.  One preferred design included a long tube enclosing a screw shape, like the historical water lifting device called the Archimedes Screw. Some did away with the tube, and just had a long screw.  In 1834 Britain Francis Pettit Smith built one such long wooden screw to drive his 237 ton ship Archimedes.  In trials part of the long screw broke off, and to everyone's surprise, instead of slowing the ship down, the shorter screw speeded it up. More experiments arrived at a very short screw shape, closer to what we know as a propeller.  Steven's also successfully used propellers on his 1804 double prop steam boat.

At the same time in the U.S., Swedish born John Ericsson built a similar screw.  His 1838 U.S. patent figures are shown below. His screw was a double propeller, and the two props were counter rotating.  His screw pattern was explained in the patent as being based on spiral screws around a cylinder, like an Archimedes screw, but only a section of the cylinder was used. 

The Music Chain Letter

OK, I have recieved what amounts to a chain letter being passed from blogger to blogger.  This particular version requires the receiver to answer these questions in his/her blog,  and pass the questions on to others in turn.  The questions are:

--   what is my total volume of music
--   what is the last CD I bought
--   what song is playing right now
--   what five songs do I listen to a lot because they are special to me
--   five people I'm passing the musical baton to

I'll answer these questions, and ask readers of this blog to enter comments to this post, and we'll see who is listening to what.  OK, here goes:

--   what is my total volume of music.

I own maybe 30 CDs, no MP3s, a lot of tapes and albums. 

--   what is the last CD I bought:  The last one was "Classic Bluegrass", from the Smithsonian book store

--   what song is playing right now:  Sarah McLachlan, Angel

--   what five songs do I listen to a lot because they are special to me

      I have several CDs in my player that contain many artists, so I hear them all in turn.  Some that I like to hear when they come up include Sarah McLauchlin, Norah Jones, Richard Thompson (Vincent '52), Emily Lou Harris, Dire Straights, Bonnie Rait,

The CDs in my player at work  are

1.  "Live from Mountain Music Lounge, Disc 2"   (BoDeans, Jack Johnson, the Wallflowers, Indigo Girls, Colin Hay, Shawn Mullins, Tom Salls, Neil Finn, David Gray, Norah Jones, Train, Patty Griffin, Carbon Leaf, Counting Crows. )

2.  Shawn Colvin

3.  "Live from Mountain Music Lounge, Volume 10"   (Dave Matthews, Alanis Morissette (I could skip her), Matchbox Twenty, Sarah McLachlan, HEM, Jamie Cullum, Alexi Murdoch, etc.)

4.  Norah Jones, Come Away with Me.

5.  mix of music made by a friend

6. a CD of Celtic music

--   five people I'm passing the musical baton to:  everyone who reads this blog!

The First Tent Camper

OK, its quiz time.  When was the first tent camper patented?  The Conestoga wagon of the early wagon trains doesn't count as a camper, nor as a tent camper, because it was really a freight wagon.  The earliest tent camper I found was from 1928, and looks pretty cool!

Early Motorcycle, 1902

W. H. Muzzy invented a motorized bicycle in 1902, which was in the form of the early motorcycles. It was driven by a belt that ran from the motor to a sheave on the rear wheel that was almost as large as the rear wheel itself.  Early motorcycle belts were leather.  This version had the bicycle pedals, which probably was used as to start the motor.

Gurney's Steam Coach

An early version of the automobile was made Goldsworthy Gurney.  Gurney was a Cornish doctor, who left medicine to pursue invention and steam carriages.   After being inspired by another steam vehicle designer, Richard Trevithick, Gurney designed his own steam carriage.  One of his models made an extended journey from London to Bath in 1829, with an average speed of 15 mph including stops.  This demonstrated the possibility of a paying carriage or coach service, and he started a company to being such a service.

One version of Gurney's coach used a lead car to pull a coach, and was called the Gurney Drag.  The lead car was powered by a high pressure steam enging, and proved that it could reliably travel 80 miles a day on a paying route.  If the engine blew up, as steam engines  sometimes did, the passengers would have some distance between themselves and the engine.

Any chance the business had of being a success were squashed by high taxes, set up to protect the horsedrawn coach industry.  Gurney improved the steam engine of the day by inventing a high pressure version of the steam engine, which others like the Stephenson's used in their rail road engine. 

 

A site built by the Building Engineering Services Group of the CIBSE includes information about  Sir Goldsworthy Gurney, with copies of his 1827 patent.