In retrospect, maybe the combination toy dog and vacuum cleaner never was destined to make millions.
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t creative, or that its inventor, Anne Margaret Zaleski, wasn’t trying to fill a market need when she obtained the patent for it in 1973, according to wipo.int.
My guess is that millions of people own dogs who are deathly afraid of traditional vacuums. It’s just that this invention, designed to help owners clean their pets after a haircut, probably didn’t fool too many canines. Many of them are instinctively skeptical of inanimate dog-looking things that come equipped with a blow dryer in the, shall we say, tail regions.
That doesn’t mean it wasn’t creative, or that its inventor, Anne Margaret Zaleski, wasn’t trying to fill a market need when she obtained the patent for it in 1973, according to wipo.int.
My guess is that millions of people own dogs who are deathly afraid of traditional vacuums. It’s just that this invention, designed to help owners clean their pets after a haircut, probably didn’t fool too many canines. Many of them are instinctively skeptical of inanimate dog-looking things that come equipped with a blow dryer in the, shall we say, tail regions.
Concerning New Year’s Eve, the late Kansas City newspaper columnist William E. Vaughan is credited with saying: “An optimist stays up until midnight to see the new year in. A pessimist stays up to make sure the old year leaves."
I don’t know which category best describes you. Most people probably display a little of each. But the record clearly shows a healthy lot of you are in the habit of tackling the future with great optimism.
For proof, just go to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Nothing screams optimism quite like the fact that 346,152 patents were granted in the United States in fiscal 2023, according to statista.com. That’s up from just 182,218 in the obviously less optimistic year of 2000.
Even if many of these are corporate endeavors, each new patent represents a person who sees the promise of reaping profits from the discovery of ways to make life better, and that person continues to believe such improvements are possible.
Beyond that, it is evidence that people believe laws and regulations will allow them to profit, while protecting their ideas from theft.
And if anyone doubts the collective power of ingenuity and innovation in a free society, try coming up with 346,152 patent-worthy ideas of your own. That number alone is reason enough to celebrate freedom.
As scientist William Brody put it, “The calculus of innovation is really quite simple: Knowledge drives innovation, innovation drives productivity, productivity drives economic growth.“
As long as people keep building new contraptions, the future will hold promise. But that’s not to say every idea will find a market. Here are some not-so-great examples I found on the site freepatentsonline.com:
First, we have the frameless glasses that were granted a patent in 2006. They were attached to the body using piercing studs, which probably made it hard to try one on just for looks. The idea had something to do with minimalist functionality, but the demand was apparently even more minimalist than the design.
Then there was the automatic light bulb changing kit, whose inventor received a patent in 2004. You could attach this to an existing light fixture or use it as a lamp of its own. It had a detector of some sort that could determine when a light bulb was burned out, and then it could automatically replace the bulb with another.
You can supply your own joke here about how many inventors it takes to change a light bulb. Just know that the illustration accompanying the application shows something large and heavy. Also, the inventor obviously didn’t foresee the invention of long-lasting LED bulbs.
If you ate too much over the holidays, you may need the “anti-eating face mask” patented in 1982. This fit onto a person’s head with wires and placed a gate in front of the mouth that made eating impossible. The great thing is you could fit a surgical mask to this and take care of two important needs at once when the next pandemic comes along.
Finally, have you ever found yourself wanting an ice cream cone on a hot summer day, but thinking it’s just too much work to lick the thing? Maybe what you need is a “motorized ice cream cone.” Patented in 1999, this thing turns the cone, using a hand-held housing and a drive mechanism. All you have to do is stick out your tongue. I’m guessing it’s as much fun to use as it is to clean afterward.
Failure often comes coupled with an aspect of entertainment, but that’s not the important lesson here. Failure is also a necessary ingredient for success. The truth is you would have trouble counting the number of useful patented items you interact with on a daily basis.
Your resolution list Tuesday night might not include inventing something useful. But the optimism you’re bound to encounter as 2025 dawns is useful, indeed. So long as humans work on problems with optimism and faith, hope for the long-term future will burn bright, indeed.
I don’t know which category best describes you. Most people probably display a little of each. But the record clearly shows a healthy lot of you are in the habit of tackling the future with great optimism.
For proof, just go to the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office. Nothing screams optimism quite like the fact that 346,152 patents were granted in the United States in fiscal 2023, according to statista.com. That’s up from just 182,218 in the obviously less optimistic year of 2000.
Even if many of these are corporate endeavors, each new patent represents a person who sees the promise of reaping profits from the discovery of ways to make life better, and that person continues to believe such improvements are possible.
Beyond that, it is evidence that people believe laws and regulations will allow them to profit, while protecting their ideas from theft.
And if anyone doubts the collective power of ingenuity and innovation in a free society, try coming up with 346,152 patent-worthy ideas of your own. That number alone is reason enough to celebrate freedom.
As scientist William Brody put it, “The calculus of innovation is really quite simple: Knowledge drives innovation, innovation drives productivity, productivity drives economic growth.“
As long as people keep building new contraptions, the future will hold promise. But that’s not to say every idea will find a market. Here are some not-so-great examples I found on the site freepatentsonline.com:
First, we have the frameless glasses that were granted a patent in 2006. They were attached to the body using piercing studs, which probably made it hard to try one on just for looks. The idea had something to do with minimalist functionality, but the demand was apparently even more minimalist than the design.
Then there was the automatic light bulb changing kit, whose inventor received a patent in 2004. You could attach this to an existing light fixture or use it as a lamp of its own. It had a detector of some sort that could determine when a light bulb was burned out, and then it could automatically replace the bulb with another.
You can supply your own joke here about how many inventors it takes to change a light bulb. Just know that the illustration accompanying the application shows something large and heavy. Also, the inventor obviously didn’t foresee the invention of long-lasting LED bulbs.
If you ate too much over the holidays, you may need the “anti-eating face mask” patented in 1982. This fit onto a person’s head with wires and placed a gate in front of the mouth that made eating impossible. The great thing is you could fit a surgical mask to this and take care of two important needs at once when the next pandemic comes along.
Finally, have you ever found yourself wanting an ice cream cone on a hot summer day, but thinking it’s just too much work to lick the thing? Maybe what you need is a “motorized ice cream cone.” Patented in 1999, this thing turns the cone, using a hand-held housing and a drive mechanism. All you have to do is stick out your tongue. I’m guessing it’s as much fun to use as it is to clean afterward.
Failure often comes coupled with an aspect of entertainment, but that’s not the important lesson here. Failure is also a necessary ingredient for success. The truth is you would have trouble counting the number of useful patented items you interact with on a daily basis.
Your resolution list Tuesday night might not include inventing something useful. But the optimism you’re bound to encounter as 2025 dawns is useful, indeed. So long as humans work on problems with optimism and faith, hope for the long-term future will burn bright, indeed.
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