> This drawing is from patent 3,855,983, issued to Zopppoth[sic] in 1967 for a miniature surveillance camera. Trying to look up that patent number[1] finds som

> This drawing is from patent 3,855,983, issued to Zopppoth[sic] in 1967 for a miniature surveillance camera. Trying to look up that patent number[1] finds something completely unrelated: A magnetic sensor device in the ignition system for an internal combustion engine, awarded to Robert J. Valek at Motorola, Inc. Even a search of the inventor's last name[2] finds nothing by the last name of Zoppoth or Zopppoth (with 3 p's as shown in the caption). I'm guessing that either there was a typo in the article, or that the Xerox patent was never issued and the number was reused by someone else (can that happen?), or that secret U.S. patents have a different numbering system that duplicates real U.S. patent numbers. [1] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=HITOFF&d=PALL&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsrchnum.htm&r=1&f=G&l=50&s1=3,855,983.PN.&OS=PN/3,855,983&RS=PN/3,855,983 http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO1&Sect2=H... [2] http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=HITOFF&p=1&u=%2Fnetahtml%2FPTO%2Fsearch-bool.html&r=0&f=S&l=50&TERM1=Zoppoth&FIELD1=INNM&co1=AND&TERM2=&FIELD2=&d=PTXT http://patft.uspto.gov/netacgi/nph-Parser?Sect1=PTO2&Sect2=H...