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Show HN: Print iconic patents for your walls
- amelius 11y agoI would prefer to put "silly" patents on my wall instead, such as [1], [2], [3]. [1] http://www.google.nl/patents/US4320756 http://www.google.nl/patents/US4320756 [2] http://www.google.com/patents/US4022227 http://www.google.com/patents/US4022227 [3] https://www.google.nl/patents/US1106495 https://www.google.nl/patents/US1106495
- lars 11y agoHow about US6145506 A: Decorative penile wrap http://www.google.com/patents/US6145506 http://www.google.com/patents/US6145506
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- zer01 11y agoCan't forget the gerbil vest! http://www.google.com/patents/US5901666 http://www.google.com/patents/US5901666
- ThePhysicist 11y agoThis is hilarious! The "toilet breathing tube" [1] actually had a prominent appearance in this year's movie "Kingsman - The Secret Service" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802144/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2802144/), where a group of trainees used shower tubes to breathe through the toilets when their dorm was flooded with water. I guess they were lucky that the patent on this has already expired, otherwise they would have drowned for certain...
- pavel_lishin 11y agoI had a problem with that scene. That works for a fire. I would not expect it to work when the entire room, toilets included, are filled with water. Wouldn't the toilets just continuously "flush" due to the water pressure, the same way as they flush if you manually dump a bucket of water into a regular toilet?
- jotm 11y agoYeah, I was thinking the same thing :-)
- pmorici 11y agoIf you could get the breathing tube to the vent pipe part of the plumbing there might be air in that part of the piping even while the toilet is draining the water from the flooded room. You would need to get the tube pushed past the toilet and into the main drain pipe though to have a chance at hitting the vent which would be difficult. I would be concerted about the gases that come out of a waste pipe though in either case I would think that can't be good for you.
- ThePhysicist 11y agoyes, I had exactly the same thought! The water pressure should eject any air inside the U-tube and probably make it impossible to breathe through the toilet. But then again, not everything in a movie has to be 100 % accurate all the time ;)
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- jotm 11y agoHere you go - How to be a Kingsman http://i.imgur.com/7IuXtbb.png http://i.imgur.com/7IuXtbb.png :-D
- CamperBob2 11y agoClearly the only way to make this work in the movie, where the entire room was flooded, would have been to rip the toilet off of its mooring bolts. Otherwise you'd never get the hose up into the vent pipe.
- JTxt 11y agoI agree. I also like Van Halen's: http://www.google.com/patents/US4656917 http://www.google.com/patents/US4656917 And many more: https://www.google.com/search?q=funny+patents&safe=active&source=lnms&tbm=isch https://www.google.com/search?q=funny+patents&safe=active&so...
- provemewrong 11y agoI can't believe someone patented a combover.
- geon 11y agoHow about printing software patents on toilet paper?
- mycelium 11y agoI've been discouraged from looking at software patents by lawyers because apparently knowledge that you're infringing can be bad news bears even if the patent is frivolous. If you actually read the toilet paper it could put you in a legally precarious situation. Funny as hell.
- brador 11y agoWhat's the copyright on patents? Could this be done as an actual business?
- iDemonix 11y agoAs someone who is fairly good at this (I spend a fair bit of time creating vectors of old motorcycles for livery design), I'm also intrigued to know.
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- olalonde 11y agoAccording to http://patents.stackexchange.com/a/78 http://patents.stackexchange.com/a/78, "the text and drawings of a patent are typically not subject to copyright restrictions" (except when specifically accompanied by a copyright notice). So I suppose the answer is yes, this could be done as a business.
- rgbrenner 11y agoUSPTO has the answer: http://www.uspto.gov/terms-use-uspto-websites.html http://www.uspto.gov/terms-use-uspto-websites.html Patents are published as part of the terms of granting the patent to the inventor. Subject to limited exceptions reflected in 37 CFR 1.71(d) & (e) and 1.84(s), the text and drawings of a patent are typically not subject to copyright restrictions. And if you follow the links to those laws, you'll see this: (d) A copyright or mask work notice may be placed in a design or utility patent application adjacent to copyright and mask work material contained therein. ... Inclusion of a copyright or mask work notice will be permitted only if the authorization language set forth in paragraph (e) of this section is included at the beginning (preferably as the first paragraph) of the specification. (e) The authorization shall read as follows: A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to (copyright or mask work) protection. The (copyright or mask work) owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all (copyright or mask work) rights whatsoever.
- radiorental 11y agoWish we had seen these when we were decorating our office. The architects, who happened to be involved in decorating as well, had picked out some 'iconic patent images'. The only problem was they were from an Etsy store and the artist just collected random, but plausible, image from the web. We had a patent for Sputnik, that might have been ok until I spotted this https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/c7/4f/06/c74f064bd6e2f98f2feeace8685ad56f.jpg https://s-media-cache-ak0.pinimg.com/originals/c7/4f/06/c74f... Its a V2 rocket.
- jotm 11y agoThe Allies really put the V2 to good use, though. http://www.airspacemag.com/space/the-first-photo-from-space-13721411/?no-ist http://www.airspacemag.com/space/the-first-photo-from-space-...
- radiorental 11y agoDoes that mean copyright infringement?
- jbuzbee 11y agoThese do look cool and perhaps are examples of inventions that should be patented, but unfortunately for me, patent abuses have turned me off to the whole patent system. I wouldn't want reminders of this broken system staring me in the face every day.
- rayiner 11y agoI think that view is a bit short sighted. For example, Xerox PARC was bankrolled by Xerox's monopoly on copier patents. In an environment where the company didn't have to worry about counting pennies in cut throat competition, it was able to fund fundamental research into technologies we take for granted today (dynamic languages, the GUI, networking). After Japanese companies successfully sued Xerox and got a consent decree to force licensing of the patents, the company, and PARC, quickly declined. Monopolies are often good for fundamental innovation. How much of modern computing traces back to either Bell Labs (built on the AT&T monopoly, which traces back to the Bell patent) or PARC (built on the Xerox patent monopoly)?
- branchless 11y agoFirst couple just made me think "how does that get a patent". Philips screwdriver - a flat screwdriver with another blade across it. Lego - a brick. Nice illustrations but maddening.
- falcolas 11y agoWell, one of the novelties of the Phillips screwdriver is its ability cam out of the screw head if it encounters too much resistance. While frustrating to many who use it, it does prevent the all too easy case of sheering off the screw head because the screw met resistance (something I've done a few times with hexagonal heads and flat screwdrivers). Lego - completely novel for its time. Just because it's not novel now, doesn't mean it wasn't novel when it was invented.
- darkstar999 11y agoWelcome to the US patent system, where everything can get a patent and you just battle it out in court!
- mattwad 11y agoI recently watched Lego's "Brickumentary" (http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3214286/ http://www.imdb.com/title/tt3214286/)... according to the movie, Lego's major invention was putting cylinders inside the bricks, which allow them to be stacked in all kinds of ways. I think that qualifies for a patent.
- NeutronBoy 11y agoEverything is obvious after it's been invented.
- zubairsaif007 11y agohttp://googler700.blogspot.com/2015/07/list-of-java-projects.html http://googler700.blogspot.com/2015/07/list-of-java-projects...
- Facens 11y agoWe created a page at Unixstickers where you can purchase the posters for each of these patent arts and have them conveniently delivered to your home or office: http://www.unixstickers.com/posters/iconic-patent-posters http://www.unixstickers.com/posters/iconic-patent-posters Check it out : )
- mattwad 11y agoI wish Unixstickers offered framing, otherwise I would have gotten my print here! The terminal catalog is cool: https://www.unixstickers.com/terminal https://www.unixstickers.com/terminal
- hoopism 11y agoI want this one on my office wall http://totallyabsurd.com/dadsaddle.htm http://totallyabsurd.com/dadsaddle.htm
- teachingaway 11y agoFor a great collection of weird old patents, check out https://www.flickr.com/groups/1478617@N25/pool/ https://www.flickr.com/groups/1478617@N25/pool/ A flickr collection by LisaGenius.
- Moter8 11y agoThere are also these https://i.imgur.com/z2wHuvM.jpg https://i.imgur.com/z2wHuvM.jpg [Cherry MX Switch pictured] prints by Inked and Screened. Sometimes available @ Massdrop for a way cheaper price.
- hallman76 11y agohttp://inkedandscreened.com/ http://inkedandscreened.com/
- hallman76 11y agoThe blog post mentions "the images are too low resolution for a good print. We've made the high resolution versions available below for you to download." Does this mean higher res versions came from another source or that these were somehow enhanced/cleaned up?
- girfan 11y agoThis is beautiful!
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- kejaed 11y agoWhile not a patent, I have always thought this schematic for the Appoe I, signed by Woz himself, would look great in the office. http://signedbywoz.com/products-schematic.php http://signedbywoz.com/products-schematic.php
- qtrain 11y agoAwesome! What are the specific sizes for the prints and the frames?
- AlexMuir 11y ago29x39cm
- ddddddddq 11y agoI think I would have to go with this one: https://i.imgur.com/4t5xWq2.png https://i.imgur.com/4t5xWq2.png
- starshadowx2 11y agoPlease drink a verification can - http://i.imgur.com/3VfoZDm.png http://i.imgur.com/3VfoZDm.png
- CamperBob2 11y agoWhat patent is that from?
- graedus 11y agoA Sony patent for mid-videogame advertising: http://www.google.com/patents/US8246454 http://www.google.com/patents/US8246454 It's really quite a gem.
- donpdonp 11y agoI would really like to see the patent expiration date on the diagrams. To give an idea of how long the screwdriver, for example, was patented.
- soundsop 11y agoI created a page at https://society6.com/constantchaos https://society6.com/constantchaos where these can be ordered as prints. I was so intrigued with the drawings that I started to look for additional patent drawings to add. My favorite new ones are the Gameboy patent drawing and 3 drawings related to Curta mechanical calculators. I developed my own vectorization and re-rasterization process that I believe offers a slight improvement in faithfulness to the original drawing (took a few tries to get the Curta ones right).
- CmonDev 11y agoCan you add the best of Nikola Tesla section?
- Animats 11y agoAs for "remastering" the patent images, here's how to do it. Patent images are stored by the USPTO in TIFF form, which is a lossless compression. For years, they were delivered to users from the USPTO site in TIFF form, and you had to have a TIFF plug-in to view them. Last year, the USPTO switched to displaying PDF files instead. Those are harder to process in programs. You can still download the TIFF files, but only in bulk.[1] They're available in blocks of about 10GB, each covering a range of patent numbers. You need about 10TB to store the whole set. [1] http://patents.reedtech.com/pgyb.php http://patents.reedtech.com/pgyb.php