Category:
Patents

Beauty Pillow

Patent No. 2,533,526 was granted to Yvonne Bersia Snyder of Forest Hills, NY for a "Beauty Pillow":

This invention relates to an article to be worn to prevent wrinkles and damaging of the skin tissues such as on the face. More particularly it deals with a pad or pillow which may be adjustably held against the side of the head to keep the skin from wrinkong or folding when the face is resting against a support, such as a pillow.
During sleep the tissues of the face are usually crushed or folded in the same position for hours at a time. For example, the flesh of the cheeks or face when flattened against the pillow during the sleeping hours pushes the skin forwards and settles in the hollows of the eyes where it produces wrinkles.
It is an object of this invention to prevent wrinkles or damaging of the skin tissues during rest.

Looks like it could also double as headgear for full-contact sports.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Nov 15, 2020 - Comments (3)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Inventions, Patents, Sleep and Dreams, 1950s

Landslide—the electoral college board game

Kenneth J. Gross and Sebron Koster were granted a patent in 1960 for Landslide, an electoral college board game. Players moved their pieces around the board trying to gain enough electoral college votes to start a 'landslide'. If you want to play it, the rules are below.

As far as I can tell, their game was never sold in stores. However, there have been two other board games called Landslide that did make it to market (in 1971 and 2004). Both involved acquiring electoral college votes but were otherwise different than the 1960 version.



How to play Landslide

At the start of the play of a game each player selects his political party and takes his marker and tokens to match. Each player or candidate rolls the die and the candidate who rolls high die opens the play. He is succeeded in turn by each candidate in a clockwise direction. All candidates begin their campaign from the central segment, viz. Washington, D.C.

The number appearing on the die indicates the number of segments (States) which the candidate may move his marker and the number of electoral votes he wins in the State attained. He places his marker on that State and beside it his tokens corresponding to the number of votes thereby won in that State.

On each turn a candidate may move in any direction he chooses. The choice of routes allowed to candidates enables them to exert an influence on the development of their campaigns. In passing through a junction of three States he may traverse only two of the States in the course of any one move. He may not reverse his direction of movement in the course of one move. A candidate may not land on nor pass through a State occupied by another candidate's marker. If the movement of a candidate is blocked by the markers of other candidates in such a manner that he cannot move his marker to the full extent of his throw of the die, then he loses that turn. A candidate must move if possible.

A candidate must return to Washington, D.C. at any time that his throw of the die could place him there, providing that Washington, D.C. is unoccupied.

The number of electoral votes of a State won by a candidate is indicated by his tokens placed alongside that State. The entire electoral vote of a State is won by the first candidate to obtain a majority of the electoral votes of that State. When a State is won by a candidate he removes the card of that State and all the electoral vote tokens on that State are returned to their respective candidates.

States that have not been won are indicated by the presence of the State cards still beside them. Any candidate may land on a State that has been won by another candidate irrespective of the presence or absence of electoral votes remaining unacquired.

Whenever a candidate lands on Washington, D.C., he has the right to call a “caucus' if he so desires. When a caucus is declared all candidates count, the electoral votes of the States they have won completely, as indicated by the State cards in their possession. The outstanding electoral votes relating to States not yet won are also counted. Should the candidate with the least number of electoral votes be unable to win the election even by winning all the electoral votes of the States which are not yet won completely then he is eliminated as a presidential candidate. Only one candidate may be eliminated on each caucus.

If on the calling of a caucus, the tally of electoral votes indicates that every candidate still has a chance to win the election assuming his acquisition of all outstanding electoral votes, then the candidate calling the caucus loses all his electoral votes on States not won completely; that is he removes all his electoral vote tokens from the board.

The electoral vote tokens of the eliminated presidential candidate on the States not completely won are removed from the board. The electoral votes of the States completely won by the eliminated candidate are divided among the remaining candidates according to the geographical distribution set out in the table above. In other words the candidate with the most electoral votes from the Eastern States, takes all the Eastern States from the eliminated candidate and similarly for the other geographical groups of States.

The presidential election is won by the first candidate who captures 266 or more electoral votes.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Nov 01, 2020 - Comments (1)
Category: Games, Politics, Patents, 1960s

Glue-On Sweat Diverter

Rosecroft Components recently (Dec 2019) was granted a patent for a glue-on "sweat diverter". From their patent:

When undertaking an activity causing sweating, a person can suffer from the effects of sweat dripping into his eyes. Many devices have been developed to address this problem, such as absorbent sweatbands. Such devices fail to prevent sweat from reaching the eyes once they become saturated, and must be dried or wrung out in order to restore their effectiveness...
Described herein are sweat-diverting devices which may be affixed to a wearer by an adhesive, such as a pressure-sensitive adhesive...
A sweat-diverting device may be reusable, with an adhesive reapplied for each wearing, or may be single use and disposable, with the adhesive integrated with the device during manufacturing.







Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 25, 2020 - Comments (1)
Category: Fashion, Headgear, Inventions, Patents, Body Fluids

Wrinkle Mask

Adelaide Smith was granted a patent for this "wrinkle mask" in 1911. It has a certain Bride of Frankenstein look to it.



The object of my invention is to provide a comparatively simple and practical wrinkle mask constructed of suitable pliable material preferably of rubber, which is adapted to envelop or cover the face or portion thereof to be treated and further for providing suitable means forming a part of the same for embracing the hair or head portion of the user, whereby the wrinkles or other deformities of the face may be easily and readily removed as will appear...

My invention dispenses with the usual work in massaging, employed for removing the wrinkles or blemishes from the face, and can be used at any time more particularly, however, at nights while the patient is sleeping.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 18, 2020 - Comments (3)
Category: Beauty, Ugliness and Other Aesthetic Issues, Inventions, Patents, 1910s

Carl Bohland’s Auto Wash Bowl

Carl Bohland patented the auto wash bowl in 1921. His idea was that cars would drive into a large, concrete bowl filled with water. After a couple of times around the bowl, the cars would be clean. Or, at least, cleaner.





Bohland managed to open a few auto wash bowls. The problem, however, was that his technique only really cleaned the underside of the cars. This was useful back in the days when many roads were still unpaved and their undersides constantly got filthy. But as road conditions improved, the auto wash bowl became less useful. By the 1930s, the last one had closed.

More info: vintag.es

Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 11, 2020 - Comments (5)
Category: Inventions, Patents, 1920s, Cars

Disease detection toilet using dog

Patent #10,455,817 was granted in Oct 2019 for "animal olfactory detection of disease as control for health metrics collected by medical toilet."

In plainer language, it's a toilet that has a small door built into the side of it (the "scent dispenser"), allowing a dog to smell your poop (or other bodily fluids) in order to detect the presence of disease. From the patent:

The user deposits bodily waste into the toilet through actions which include urinating or defecting into the toilet, vomiting into the toilet, coughing up sputum into the toilet, and depositing mucus into the toilet...
An animal may be trained to sniff the scent dispenser in response to a command or signal. The user may give the animal the command or signal when the user desires the animal to assess the presence of disease in the user.


Posted By: Alex - Sun Oct 04, 2020 - Comments (2)
Category: Bathrooms, Inventions, Patents, Dogs

Health Jolting Chair

Oliver Halsted was granted a patent for an "exercising machine" in 1844. It was later marketed as the Health Jolting Chair. AKA the "wake-up chair." By pulling the levers on the side, it would bounce up and down. It was said to be a panacea for "dyspepsia, liver complaint, low spirits, general debility, constipation, 'so-called malaria,' jaundice, melancholia, and anemia."

Image source: Natl Lib of Medicine

Posted By: Alex - Sun Sep 27, 2020 - Comments (0)
Category: Exercise and Fitness, Health, Inventions, Patents, Nineteenth Century

Subjective Color

July 25, 1967: During its broadcast of the TV series Combat!, ABC aired a commercial for a soft-drink called Squirt. The commercial appeared in color. What made this unusual is that it appeared in color even on black-and-white TV sets.



The commercial used a technology developed by the Color-Tel Corp., and patented by James Butterfield, that used pulses of light to trick the brain into thinking that it was seeing color. Butterfield described this as "subjective color".

The company had informed the media before the broadcast, but most people didn't know it was going to happen, and so they thought they were going nuts when they suddenly saw flashes of color on their black-and-white sets.

Detroit Free Press - Sep 14, 1967



The technology had some limitations. It could only be used for still images. Also, the colors were muted and flickered a lot. But the really big problem was that the technology emerged just as color TVs were becoming popular. So it was a clever gimmick that no longer had much practical purpose.

More info: Chronicles from the Analog Age Blog

Also worth noting: the idea of being able to see color images on a black-and-white set was the premise of a famous April Fool's Day hoax that occurred in 1962 in Sweden.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Sep 20, 2020 - Comments (0)
Category: Inventions, Patents, Television, 1960s

Aroma Discs

Donald Spector received a patent for these in 1985. They looked like small music discs. But instead of producing sound, they released an aromatic vapor when put in the 'player'.



I don't see what advantage an aroma disc would have over an incense candle (except, perhaps, for the lack of an open flame). Which, I assume, is why these are no longer around and incense candles are all over the place.

But Spector was successful enough to have his product featured on The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson:

Posted By: Alex - Sun Sep 06, 2020 - Comments (3)
Category: Inventions, Patents, 1980s, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

Aroma of Cocaine

In 1981, Warren Woodford of Atlanta, Georgia was granted a patent (No. 4,260,517) for a method of producing the "aroma of cocaine". From the patent:

The present invention relates to a method and product for providing the aroma of cocaine and so called "street cocaine" to the olfactory senses using readily available, non-controlled substances...

Olfactory conditioning by brain trigger stimulus has recently found application in law enforcement agencies. In some instances, narcotics officers are permitted to light a marijuana cigarette during their training in order to allow them to later react to the characteristic aroma of marijuana smoke. Similarly, officers may be exposed to the aroma of cocaine so as to familiarize them with its distinctive aromatic smell...

Due to the legally controlled nature of such substances as cocaine and marijuana, it is usually not possible to freely disseminate samples of such substances to everyone who might wish to become acquainted with the aromas of these substances. Drug familiarization programs have as a result been limited by the availability of the drugs themselves.

It is therefore desirable to find alternative sources for the aroma of certain controlled substances.

I'm surprised this was never turned into a perfume.

Posted By: Alex - Sun Aug 30, 2020 - Comments (2)
Category: Drugs, Patents, 1980s, Perfume and Cologne and Other Scents

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