Ten Oversights

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Something was bothering me while I was writing yesterday’s article about the Parker Zaner-Bloser.  I dug deep into my well of prior research looking for chapter and verse regarding the design patents for the unique shape. . . all the way back to Volume 1, when I was writing about those crappy plastic and wood pencils (remember, of course, that “crappy” does not mean I don’t like them, nor that I don’t have a few):

The published article (Volume 1, page 380) included images of two design patents: the first one for the penholder, and the last one for the mechanical pencil.  Those were the two patents I dove back into that file folder to find - imagine my surprise to find in the image folder that in addition to those two, I also had images of design patents for the double-ended penholder and the “true blue” Zaner-Bloser” fountain pen.

It would be another two years before I would write American Writing Instrument Patents Volume 2: 1911-1945, so I must have found these two patents the old-fashioned way . . . poking and prodding the internet until blind luck favored me with a result - and since they weren’t strictly pencil-related, I apparently never published them.

Big mistake.  Huge.

When I wrote the patent books, I followed a methodology that worked remarkably well: I started with the utility patents filed with Category 401, then branched out into “known” categories in which I’d found artifacts.  This caught a lot of other patents which wouldn’t otherwise have made it into the book, since they weren’t filed in categories that were strictly pen or pencil related

The best example is Ephraim Johnson’s “pearl patent” of December 5, 1871, number 121,627.  Although we associate Johnson’s patent with pencils, it was filed in category 138, subcategory 140: “pipes and tubular conduits,” “distinct layers.”  The only reason I knew to include it in the book was because I had seen it imprinted on so many pearl-slabbed pencils.

As I was writing the patent books, I went back through all the articles I had posted at the blog and went through all the categories in which the patents were filed that I’d written about.  In the case of the Parker Bloser patents . . . well, I ran down the categories for the two patents that eventually ran in the article, fully explored the and faithfully reported everything I found. 

As for the two that didn’t make the cut?  Oops.  They were filed in obscure subcategories I never explored.  The oversight wasn’t a total loss; patents are frequently indexed under several different categories, most of the patents in those categories made it into the book because they were cross-indexed in other categories I had checked.  However, ten design patents -- including these two -- got past me. 

Design patents are found in category D19, “Office supplies; artists and teachers materials,” and the subcategories are insane.  Parker Z. Bloser’s design patent for the double-ended penholder was filed in subcategory 117: “Equipment for writing, drawing, or for fine arts: opposed tips.”  Nearly everything that was filed in that category was also filed somewhere else, with one fun exception:

Gilbert Nelson of Clear Lake, Wisconsin received Design Patent 74,119 on December 20, 1927.  In this case, one of the “opposed tips” is a pencil – the other, however, is a pencil-shaped lollipop.

The Zaner-Bloser fountain pen (Design patent 82,309) was filed in category D19/168: “Marking or writing instrument,” “including a cap,” “cap or barrel includes a clip,” “barrel has combination of shapes in side view.”  Seven other design patents were also squirreled away in this category – seven which didn’t make it into the book but should have.

1. Design patent 107,438, issued to Charles J. MacNally of Jamaica, New York on December 14, 1937, for a combined fountain pen and check protector:

2. Design patent 124,609, issued to Louis Morrison of New York, New York on January 14, 1941 – this illustrates the Morrison “Black Beauty” pen:

3. Design patent 124,725, issued to David Ornstein of New York, New York on January 21, 1941, for a pen with a watch set into the top:

4. Design patent 138,826, issued to Maurice Waldinger, Jr. of Flushing, New York on September 19, 1944:

5. and 6. Design patents 139,904 and 139,905 were both issued to Abraham Baff of North Arlington, New Jersey for versions of a pen with a flattened barrel:

7. Design patent 141,859, issued to Martin Ullman of New York on July 10, 1945, and assigned to Maurice J. Waldinger:

There are probably other categories in Design group 19 that eluded me - I started spot-checking some of the others and so far, I don’t think I missed anything else.  There’s been several articles here with other patents that weren’t in the book, but they only surfaced because an artifact was found with an imprint leading to a category I never would have thought to check.  This time, darn it - these were right under my nose.