The Hawaiian gazette., 1904-11-15
SOME FREAK
INVENTORS
Various Tomfool Papers
In Patent Office
Records.


plcations for patents nowadays as IN
former years but the funny practitioners
of patent law still favor us with oe-
rasiona farcical applications" said a
principal examiner in the Patent Once.
These applications are always in reg
ulation official form, and the specifca-
tons describe all sorts of nonsensical
eontrivances and contraptions.
1.-THE chaps who send them in are not
insane. They are usually brieiless young
patent attorneys, with nothing much on
hand except time.
"Not long ago one of these applica-
tons drifted in covering claims for an
attachable tail for stump tailed dogs.
The application was drawn up with
great elaboration and accompanied by
numerous drawings that must have cost
the expenditure of considerable time
and effort 1t was plainly the work OF
a very idle young attorney.
"The specifications recited the diff
Guilty which short tailed dogs are al
legged to experience in turning sharp
corners, and also dwelt feelingly upon
the obvious humiliation with which
short tailed dogs regard their abbreviat-
ed caudal appendages, especially when
they come into social contact with other
dogs better fixed out in that respect.
Then the specifications described the at
tachable tail at great length, and the
application wound up with numerous
serious and technically worded claims
for the priority of the invention.
This, of course, is all fun, or at any
rate it means to be fun. But many of
the bona fide applications for patents are
more genuinely funny than the farccal
applications Some of the inventions
upon which patents have actually been
issued are little less amusing.
"A man need not be sane to get a
United States patent. If he submits to
the Patent Office an invention that is
patentable, he gets his patent, and quite
few paterts have been issued to men
confined in insane asylums
There is a never ending stream of
applications for freak patents. Not long
ago CHICAGO man applied for patent
on an electric hog killing apparatus.
The contraption was so devised that
the unsuspecing hog stuck his head
through an aperture in an electrically
wired compartment, closed circuit by
butting his snout against metal sheet,
and with his head firmly held within
the aperture by drop clutch apparatus
practically committed involuntary sui
eide
Another man from the West applied,
mot long ago, for patent on an cleo
trical horse The horse is fashioned
of aluminium the body completely COW
cred with the hide OF deceased horse,
and in every respect the animal is made
to look as natural as life, even being
provided with movable eyeballs.
The electrical horse is intended to
run with the natural movements of
sure enough live horse, ard, according
to the applicant, is capable of doing a
mile minute. Just cantering," as he
states. The applicant doesn't state what
he's going to do with his electrical
horse after he gets his patent suppos-
ing he gets it-but il is presumed that
he meditates entering his imitation
runner as ringer in races with honest
anu-truly i've tnOrouPnDredS.
"A few years ago queer ger'us in
New England applied for a patent on
an improved tombstone, metal affair
involving a lot of odd kinks and de-
signed to resist wind and weather for
many thousands OF years. The appli-
cant has died since filing his application
and one of his tombstones adorns his
own resting place in a small Massachu-
sets village, with the following inscrip-
ton wrought on the face OF il:
Here lies Wendell, an inventor by
trade,
And this, you will see. is an invention
he made
TTis strange to say, though It's most
truly said
That he made it while living and en-
Joyed il when dead.
Still slowed away somewhere in tn,
basement, ! believe, is the rough model
Of a combined plough and cannon, a
patent upon which was applied for by
a Nebraska farmer. His farm was near
the Sioux reservation, and the cannon
attachment to his plough was meant for
the sun dancing Ogalalas who engaged
IN farm raiding.
w AlllN lfAhAkNlANk ~ lliN llNlh wv AAhANN
agricullurist could. by simply turning his
plough upside down. load small but
effective cannon wherewith 10 shoot or
scare the proving red persons, The
cannon was provided with an ammun-
ton box aud all Of the appliances nee
sssary Tor the proper serving OF the
piece
Another queer application from a
NUfrn farmer was Tor a patent un q
thing he called hen nusher II was lu
tended % prevent hens from scratching
snd mankrylug around iu garden patch
60 Hooks oi peculiar construction were
a. b. attached il llie hen, feet ~ lhlt
when She acne into lhs ground She Nas
gently pushed forward br lhc hook and
spring apparatus
Another application iur d patent ~
. device ~ ihr hr8IdumHr ~ he
abused ben Same lu Nh''e afH lt Nat|
called pslrW hmt urt lhf idea ~
h NHs o. nInWl Narf'r. Wi aHd lhrI
lbe Jam a.ius mn. n,.s aHd sH,k
inT M fTH
HIIffe SEQ small hl'r concealed