It is Thanksgiving here in the United States, and before I start baking pies I want to thank everyone who voted for PharmaPatentsBlog for the ABA Journal's Blawg 100. I am honored that this blog made the list of 100 favorite legal blogs, and proud that so many of you have come to rely on it for timely insight on emerging legal developments impacting patent rights in the pharmaceutical, biotechnology, and chemical fields.
Since I'm pretty sure my readership has grown over the past five years, I'm going to re-share some of my favorite Thanksgiving-related patents from my first Thanksgiving day article.
Pop-Up Thermometer Patent
One of the earliest pop-up thermometer patents I found is U.S. 3,140,611, granted in 1964 to G.G. Kliewer.
Hopefully Figure 1 and Figure 2 are drawn to different scales!
Here's what the patent says about Figure 1:
FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a dressed fowl which has been prepared for roasting and has a signaling device embodying the present invention inserted into the breast area thereof.
Stove Top Stuffing Patent
We make our Thanksgiving stuffing from scratch, but I made (and ate) my share of Stove Top stuffing during my college days. The "instant stuffing mix" was patented in 1975 under U.S. 3,870,803. It doesn't have any figures, but doesn't this claim sound delicious?
1. A conveniently packaged stuffing mix for ready hydration to form a stuffing composition comprising:
i. a stuffing flavor component
comprising a mixture of condiments with dehydrated vegetables or
dehydrated fruits or mixtures of said vegetables or fruits,
and
ii. a low moisture content farinaceous crumb component, said crumb
having a moisture content of less than 15% and comprising a member
selected from the group consisting of
a, yeast-leavened corn bread crumb,
b. mixtures of yeast-leavened white bread crumb with corn bread
crumb or yeast-leavened whole wheat bread crumb or mixtures
thereof, and
c. mixtures of corn bread crumb with yeast-leavened whole wheat
crumb or yeast-leavened corn bread crumb or mixtures thereof,
and
said crumb having a particle size such that at least 95% by weight
passes through a 2 mesh screen and no greater than 5% by weight
passes through a 50 mesh screen,
each of said components being packaged separately to form a
segregated unit package.
Cranberry Sauce
Cranberry recipes have been around longer than the U.S. patent system, but methods of making cranberry sauce have been patented, including U.S. 2,700,614 (whole berry, 1955) and U.S. 3,142,577 (jellied, 1964). Which style do you prefer?
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