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Great fun has Patent Commissioner Coe when he assembles his assistants—Professor Richard Spencer, Bryan M. Battey and Leslie Frazer—and they go over such patents as these: Balloon Propelled by Eagles, Vultures, Condors. The birds wore harnesses which could be pulled in any direction by the operator. Birds had "merely to fly." They could also be pointed up or down. The drawing for the patent showed a balloon like a big inverted umbrella, with a bird cage mushrooming above it.
Improvement in Privy-Seats "renders it impossible for the user to stand upon the privy-seat; and consists in the provision of rollers on the top of the seat, which, although affording a secure and convenient seat, yet, in the event of an attempt to stand upon them, will revolve, and precipitate the user on to the floor. . . ."
Device for Preventing Dog Nuisance consists of an electrical grille. "When, therefore, the device has been placed in position in front of a building, or the like, where dogs have been in the habit of committing a nuisance, the next one that attempts the act, will receive a severe shock ... by reason of the grounding of the current through the dog's body. After receiving one such shock it is believed that that particular locality will be shunned in the future by every dog so punished. . . ."
Other Devices: Alarm clock which squirted water on a sleeper's neck; rat exterminator which snapped a collar with bell attached on the rat; electrocuter of bedbugs; eyeglasses for chickens to keep them from being pecked by other chickens; small round-pointed drill to produce dimples; egg-marker to be attached to the hen; automatic hat-tipper, to work which the user needs only to bow his head; combined rocking-chair and churn.*
"Perpetual motion" machines are the patent examiner's biggest annoyance. A popular bicycle idea was one in which, besides the usual chain, there was a second chain connecting the rear wheel with the front wheel. Thus when the bicycle was fairly going, the rear wheel drove the front wheel, which pulled the bicycle, which turned the rear wheel. One inventor of such a bike was pretty persistent. He would not go away until an examiner asked him how he would stop the bicycle.
One of the biggest perpetual-motion men of recent years turned up his nose at the Patent Office. Garabed T. K. Giragossian went directly to Congress and enthralled Congressmen for seven years (1917-24) with stories of how the Garabed Free Energy Generator would save the U.S. a $30,000,000,000 annual power bill, win the War, redeem the Sahara, rescue Mankind from the curse of the steam engine, crime and insanity. Mr. Giragossian asked for a special Act of Congress to protect his discovery—"not a perpetual motion machine"—and got such an act (1917). President Wilson vetoed the bill, Congress again took up the matter. This time the Senate Committee on Patents (Hiram Johnson, chairman) cagily asked for a model.