Posts Tagged: "holiday"

It is that time of year where we annually pause as a nation, taking time out of our busy lives to visit family, watch football, eat too much turkey and other holiday foods, and read about patents that related to turkeys in one way, shape or form.  Well, most of the nation won’t be engaging in the later, but obviously you are here, it is a holiday and you are reading IPWatchdog.com. Predicting you were going to spend a portion of the day reading about patents that in some way relate to turkeys was really a lay-up in the world of predictions and prognostications!

Several years ago we profiled the Top 10 Iconic (and Patented) Toys in our Christmas Eve edition. This year we decided to profile the most iconic and patented games, many of which are still likely to be found waiting for good little girls and boys under the Christmas tree. Profiled are Monopoly®, Rubik’s Cube, Battleship, and Rock’em Sock’em Robots, Twister and Simon.

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.

It was only going to be a matter of time before Director Lee declaring a federal holiday without any statutory authority came back to haunt the USPTO. Here the defendants were served with the complaint on December 24, 2014, which means any IPR had to be filed on or before Thursday, December 24, 2015. The defendants filed their IPR petitions on Monday, December 28, 2015. The patent owner argues in a recently filed federal complaint that the IPR petitions would be considered untimely but for Director Lee declaring December 22-24, 2015, federal holidays due to the catastrophic failure of the USPTO’s electronic filing systems.

In retrospect, the proper thing for Director Lee to have done would have been to declare an emergency under the powers vested in her by 35 USC 21(a). Under §21(a) the Director of the USPTO can declare that a paper was filed on a day that it would have been filed but for a disruption in mail service or emergency. The net effect is that the filing is treated the same as under the Saturday, Sunday or Federal holiday rule. It would be wise for the Patent Office to issue a clarification on this matter, explaining that Director Lee declared an emergency under §21(a) of Title 35 and did not attempt to create a new federal holiday in honor of a catastrophic power outage.

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!

Retailers always top the list of seasonal and holiday hiring sprees but one of the largest employer of seasonal workers the past few years doesn’t own a single brick-and-mortar retail establishment. That would be e-commerce giant Amazon.com, Inc. (NASDAQ:AMZN) of Seattle, WA. In 2014, the Internet retailer announced that it would hire 80,000 seasonal workers during last year’s holiday season. In 2015, Amazon has upped that number to 100,000 workers that it plans to employ on at least a temporary basis. This makes Amazon the single largest employer of seasonal workers during 2015, ahead of United Parcel Service, Inc. (NYSE:UPS) and its 95,000 holiday hires.

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.

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.

Frequent readers of IPWatchdog know that we look for any excuse to talk about patents and holidays provide an opportunity to discus thematically relevant patents for interesting innovations. This year we are focusing on Christmas lights. Some of these patents are for Christmas tree lighting, some are for outdoor decorative lighting and we have one from the era that just caught our eye as we were researching. So sit back and enjoy the wonderful world of patents, Christmas style. And be sure and check out our other Christmas patent articles.

My review of the state-of-the-art sleigh technologies shows that during the early 1880s more comfortable sleigh rides were on the minds of many an inventor, and by the mid to late 1890s improvements evolved to include additional features, such as removable seats, steps to assist one to enter and disembark from the sleigh and various steering mechanisms. Like virtually all reviews of patented technology, even such low tech inventions as sleighs, the ongoing evolution of improvement is apparent, which is the hallmark of innovation. Make things safer, faster, cheaper or stronger. Innovate to make operational improvements the users will greatly appreciate, such a smoother riding sleigh. Such a review of sleigh technology also gives us a glimpse into life of the day by showing us the problems that creative members of society were working to solve.