by Lawrence Bush on March 29, 2012
Hymen Lipman of Philadelphia was granted a patent for a pencil with a rubber eraser on its end on this date in 1858. Both the graphite and the eraser of Lipman’s pencil could be sharpened. Lipman also founded the first envelope company in the U.S., in 1843, and bought a patent for the postcard, created in 1861 by John P. Charlton; Lipman’s cards had a decorated border and no images, and became the first authorized cards that could be mailed, in 1870. (The U.S. Post Office would issue its own three years later.) In 1862, Lipman sold his pencil patent to Joseph Reckendorfer for a hefty $100,000, and Reckendorfer proceeded to sue the Faber pencil company for patent infringement — but in 1875 the Supreme Court ruled the patent invalid because Lipman’s invention was simply a combination of two already known entities. The modern pencil was likely invented in the late 16th century; before then, the penicillum was “a small brush . . . constructed of a hollow wood tube filled with neatly arranged animal hairs,” according to Jamie Phillips of the Pennsylvania Center for the Book. March 30 is National Pencil Day.
“The combination, to be patentable, must produce a different force or effect or result in the combined forces or processes from that given by their separate parts. There must be a new result produced by their union; if not so, it is only an aggregation of separate elements.”—U.S. Supreme Court,Reckendorfer v. Faber, 1875
by Lawrence Bush on February 29, 2012
Harry Soref, an itinerant locksmith who invented the laminated steel padlock and founded the Master Lock Company in 1921, died at age 70 on this date in 1950. Soref patented his padlock in 1924 and began to manufacture them in Milwaukee soon after; his locks had several layers of steel for maximum strength, like a bank vault or a naval vessel, and became a sensation in 1928 when federal prohibition agents bought 147,600 of them to lock up speakeasies they had raided. Harry Houdini and Soref were buddies in the circus for a number of years, and Soref advised the great escape artist about hiding keys to pick locks. According to his grandson, Soref “had an incredible relationship with his employees. That’s part of the reason the company was so successful. He cared dearly about them and they cared about him. He’d have employee picnics and he’d give them gifts. He just really cared about them.”
“He loved to play cards so much. His story was — if you take one card, it’s easy to tear. If you look at a deck of cards, like a phone book, it’s hard to tear. That’s kind of where he got the idea for a padlock that is layer upon layer of steel.” —Harris Turer (grandson)
by Lawrence Bush on February 26, 2012
U.S. Patent No. 644,077 for “Acetylsalicylic Acid,” generally known as aspirin, was assigned on this date in 1900 to Felix Hoffman, a German chemist who worked in the pharmaceutical laboratory of Friedrich Bayer & Co. Nearly half a century later, however, in 1949, a German Jewish chemist, Arthur Eichengrün, would claim that he had instructed Hoffmann to synthesize the compound, which Hoffman had done without even knowing its purpose. While interned in the Terezin concentration camp in 1944, Eichengrün wrote a letter (now in the Bayer archives) staking his claim, but he was unable to pursue the matter before dying in 1949. Eichengrün had left Bayer in 1908 to establish his own factory in Berlin and became a successful industrialist based on his development of other drugs as well as cellulose acetate, acetate silk, and acetate safety film.
“The most reasonable conclusion is that Arthur Eichengrün was telling the truth when he wrote that acetylsalicylic acid was synthesised under his direction and that the drug would not have been introduced in 1899 without his intervention.” —Walter Sneader
by Lawrence Bush on June 21, 2011
The first successfully engineered long-playing record was unveiled to the public at the Waldorf Astoria on this date in 1948. Made of nonbreakable vinyl plastic and designed for the new speed of 33-1/3 revolutions-per-minute, the LP was the creation of a team led by Dr. Peter Carl Goldmark of Columbia Records. LPs presented up to 40 minutes of music, which made possible the modern record album. Goldmark, an immigrant from Hungary, also developed the first color television technology, an early electronic video recorder, and nearly 160 other inventions in communications technology. President Jimmy Carter presented him with the National Medal of Science in 1977.
“The average LP has about 1,500 feet (460 m) of groove on each side, or about a third of a mile.” —Wikipedia
Hymen Lipman of Philadelphia was granted a patent for a pencil with a rubber eraser on its end on this date in 1858. Both the graphite and the eraser of Lipman’s pencil could be sharpened. Lipman also founded the first envelope company in the U.S., in 1843, and bought a patent for the postcard, created in 1861 by John P. Charlton; Lipman’s cards had a decorated border and no images, and became the first authorized cards that could be mailed, in 1870. (The U.S. Post Office would issue its own three years later.) In 1862, Lipman sold his pencil patent to Joseph Reckendorfer for a hefty $100,000, and Reckendorfer proceeded to sue the Faber pencil company for patent infringement — but in 1875 the Supreme Court ruled the patent invalid because Lipman’s invention was simply a combination of two already known entities. The modern pencil was likely invented in the late 16th century; before then, the penicillum was “a small brush . . . constructed of a hollow wood tube filled with neatly arranged animal hairs,” according to Jamie Phillips of the Pennsylvania Center for the Book. March 30 is National Pencil Day.
