Posts in Holiday Posts

This year on Thanksgiving I find myself recovering from back surgery, so in addition to my annual thank you message to readers — your reading makes this all possible and worthwhile — I have a few other “thank you” messages to share… This patent covers a method for de-boning a turkey prior to cooking such that it can be cooked more rapidly and with less oven space.

The solution to this intractable puzzle was provided by Santa in the Patent, which describes a grid of enormous, land-based wind turbines running back and forth between the east and west coasts of the United States, arranged alternately parallel and perpendicular to the equator. This grid, claims the Patent, propels a sled that contains an assembly of wind-catching parachutes and, as a backup propulsion system, a team of stimulated ruminants who respond to their catchy Teutonic names. The sled itself is manned by a right jolly old elf who is prevented from being blown off by a sophisticated harnessing process adapted from the airline industry and more fully described in the Patent.

Since our last turkey patent report over Thanksgiving 2015 there have only been 5 U.S. patents issued with the word “turkey” in the title, which suggests a steep and rather unexpected decline in the number of turkey related innovations year over year… But the point of this article isn’t just to remind you to let Archimedes by your guide, or to identify a handful of recent patents that deal with turkeys, make a gratuitous mention of football (go Cowboys!), weave in mention of Presidential turkey pardons, or even to take a cheap shot at the PTAB (although I couldn’t resist). Instead, the point of the article is to simply say THANKS! Thank you for reading IPWatchdog.com.

I thought it might be interesting to take a look at one of more fun holiday traditions — kissing under mistletoe. According to History.com, mistletoe is a symbolic herb that has been used in one form or another for thousands of years, but when and how kissing under mistletoe became associated with the Christmas holiday is open for debate. What isn’t open for debate, however, is just how sparse the field of mistletoe innovation really is. Sure, there are a number of patents that deal with mistletoe extracts, but that isn’t exactly in keeping with the holiday theme. There are also a couple design patents of questionable taste, at least for a family audience. I hope you enjoy this selection and have a very Merry Christmas.

Since last Thanksgiving there have been 11 U.S. patents issued with the word “turkey” in the title. What does this tell us, that there isn’t a lot of patented innovation in any given year dealing with turkeys. Of course, that really isn’t the point of this article. The point of this article is simply to say THANKS! Thank you for reading IPWatchdog.com. From our family to yours, Happy Thanksgiving!

The pursuit of pi, the numerical constant which represents the ratio of a circle’s diameter to its circumference, is a subject which has driven mathematicians to extremes. The date 3/14/15 coincides with pi calculated to five digits (3.1415). The next time this will occur will be 100 years from now, making this year’s Pi Day a once in a century event.

What kind of patents relating specifically to artificial Christmas trees exist? Plenty! Here are artificial Christmas tree patents from 1911 to 1928. U.S. Patent No. 1,654,427, issued December 27, 1927, is the first artificial Christmas tree patent I uncovered that could be said to actually look like something that you might see today.

Sitting at the dinner table with his family on Thanksgiving in 1981, Srinivasan looked at his turkey dinner and a brilliant thought occurred to him: a leftover bone with cartilage would provide the perfect test subject. The cartilage and other tissues attached to the turkey bone could approximate the physical structure of human tissue, and the smoothness and rigidity of the cartilage would make it easier to read the results of the experiment. On November 27, 1981, the team operated an argon fluoride (ArF) excimer laser to create a clean etching on the turkey’s cartilage that could be viewed when placed under an optical microscope. Further tests on the cartilage helped the team understand how many laser pulses were required to make a cut, the amount of energy delivered via the laser beam and the impacts of the laser on adjacent tissues.

Of course, it wouldn’t be a traditional Christmas at IPWatchdog unless we spent some time profiling some cool innovations that relate to the holiday season. So today, with Christmas firmly in mind, we want to take a look at the importance that utility and design patents have held for the toy industry. With the hours winding down before Santa Claus makes his way down chimneys across the world, join us as we take a look back at some of the most popular children’s toys of all time, as well as the intellectual property behind them all. Our journey runs includes iconic toys such as the Hoola Hoop, Slinky, Play-Doh, Easy Bake Oven, Game-Boy, the Frisbee, YoYo, Lego blocks, the Magic 8 Ball and the Etch A Sketch.