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Did you know ...

• the researchers who lived in the GE Realty Plot in Schenectady, New York, were collectively responsible for over 400 patents and one Nobel Prize?
• the House of Lords declined to hear an appeal from the decision of the Court of Appeal in Aerotel v Telco and Macrossan's application, concerning the patentability of computer programs in the United Kingdom?
• some pulvinones have shown anticoagulant activity in rats, whilst other pulvinone derivatives are patented antibiotics for use in animals?
• scenic State Route 160 crosses California's Sacramento River twice on 1923 bascule bridges (one pictured) patented by Joseph B. Strauss, who went on to design the Golden Gate Bridge?
• in 1889, Frank Atwood Huntington patented a self-propelled gasoline engine vehicle (patent image pictured), four years before the Duryea Brothers built their first car?
• pioneering research on time-temperature canning conducted at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology by Samuel Cate Prescott was never patented?
• the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in Sears v. Stiffel that companies can make and sell exact copies of other companies' inventions if they are not patented?
• the automated tank cleaning machine used to clean oil tankers after discharging cargo was patented by Arthur Butterworth in 1920?
• the PHOSITA or "person having ordinary skill in the art" is a legal fiction used by the patent law to check if an invention is just too obvious?
• to speed up patent cases, United States federal judge T. John Ward uses a chess clock to time opening and closing arguments?
• the history of aspirin has been marked by fierce competition, patent and trademark battles, and even an international conspiracy known as the Great Phenol Plot?
• the Brown truss (pictured: truss detail) was patented in 1857, enjoyed a brief spurt in popularity, was used in several covered bridges in Michigan in the mid 19th century, and was apparently never used again?
• the British Rail flying saucer was an unbuilt nuclear fusion powered space craft, proposed and patented in the 1970s by British Rail?
• before he became president of the United States Chamber of Commerce, Henry I. Harriman had received several patents for automatic looms?
• although Gridley Bryant invented many of the basic railroad technologies in the early 1820s, including tracks and wheels, he never patented them?
• Henry Greathead invented the lifeboat in 1790, but never sought to patent it?
• Joseph Nathan Kane had personal possession of America's first fountain pen and the 1849 patent model for America's first safety pin?
• Clarence Herbert Smith (pictured), who invented the stump-jump plough under the direction of his brother, later produced the machine for sale because the patent taken out by his brother was left to lapse?
• American physicist Hugh Bradner developed the first neoprene wetsuit but was unable to patent it?
• television pioneer Thomas T. Goldsmith, Jr. became the inventor of the video game when he took out a video game patent in 1948?
• The J.M. Smucker Co. was granted a patent on a sealed crustless sandwich, a type of peanut butter and jelly sandwich and it is often used as an example of a frivolous patent?
• Mysore mallige (pictured), a variety of Jasmine flower endemic to Karnataka state of India, is patented for its unique quality, attribution and reputation?
• Paul L. Foshee, who served in both houses of the Louisiana State Legislature, holds a patent on an airplane mount bracket?
• William T. Kane, a physicist with Corning Incorporated, held three patents in crystallography important to the development of fiber optics?
• Zalman Shapiro, who received a 2009 patent for a method of diamond synthesis at age 89, was instrumental in developing the world's first nuclear-powered submarine, the Nautilus, launched in 1954?
• Vuestar Technologies in Singapore claims to own patents for hyperlinking a visual image to webpages, and plans to bill virtually all websites for its use?
• Tibbia College, with 84 patents in herbal medicine, is the only medical institution in India to offer education and training in two ancient systems of medicine, Ayurveda and Unaani?
• Thomas Leavitt and his brother Martin patented the first practical device in the United States to machine postmark letters?
• AT&T once released designs for 83,539 equivalent transforms of a circuit into the public domain just to deny their competitors the ability to patent them?