Welcome to Interesting Old Patents
We are taking a look at some old patents, what they indicate, and following the development of some of the most potentially controversial inventions.
We are taking a look at some old patents, what they indicate, and following the development of some of the most potentially controversial inventions.
Before you get too deep into exploring the patents listed on this website make sure that you read through the following list of pros and cons, because there are some caveats that are worth knowing.
Patents are required to be real by the patent offices, as well as new and novel inventions with instructions to build the invention and real industrial applications. If a patent is still in the patent database after some attention, it notable that it has never been disproven.
WIPO FAQIf a patent is published here it indicates that it was assessed by a patent assessor as a real invention by the patent office and that it was deliberately published because it met the criteria, that no one has proved it impossible to the court or patent office, and that is was not withheld for secrecy.
See the "What can be patented?" question, found on the first page linked on the USPTO menu (link below).
USPTO's Patent Essentials pagePatents can be found using a search feature on official patent websites, patents have to contain full instructions deemed necessary to replicate the invention mentioned in the patent, so they are really good for learning how to make things.
USPTO.gov Basic SearchPatents are usually designed only to claim the rights to the invention and often designed to deliberately obscure the intended nature of its use so people can't steal the idea.
Despite being available, people often don't accept that they are real inventions and they can react badly to being told that the technologies exist.
Categories are organised so that you can follow the development of specific inventions thorough government verifiable patents for stages in their development. Today we'll be following the development of secretive categories of inventions though patents for stages in its development. The areas featured on the homepage currently are:
As seen on TV, this is the development of the Directional Security device called the LRAD, it's used in maritime security to overwhelm aggressors, and it can cause the sensation of hearing things from nowhere but the ultrasonic vibrations do cause your ears to hear the sound unlike Radio Hearing Effect we follow later.
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Method of using ultrasonic waves as an undetectable communications device, using something like a building as a carrier medium.
Description of the directional uses of LRAD technology in static, mobile and man-portable for things like crowd control and as security for buildings.
Looks like a handheld LRAD style device causing people nearby to hear without feeling where the sound waves are coming from, but the ear does vibrate.
Devices using various techniques to make people feel sensations such as bugs crawling on the skin. They rely on electrical pulses, magnetic pulses, or air pulses (such as sound), applied to the person's skin using frequencies such as 1/2hz and 2.4hz to create a sensation that they are feeling something somewhere in their body.
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This study apparently shows the development of an invention that can make people perceive physical sensations on/in the body based on weak electrical fields, now in a battery powered device.
Application of the 1/2hz and 2.4hz frequencies being used for causing things like sleepiness or sexual arousal, but using previously mentioned electrical fields, with electrodes in contact with the skin.
Follows on from the weak electric field technique of making someone perceive a sensation on/in the body, now doing it from a short distance with magnets.
Makes someone feel a sensation or the related effects mentioned earlier from pulses on a computer screen or TV (CRT).
The cause of many people's madness, directly and indirectly. This category covers development of devices that cause someone to think they have heard a voice, that's not coming from them, without vibrating the ear drums. The sound you perceive is very difficult to tell apart from things you have thought about verbalising yourself. Please note; there are other ways to make people hear a voice, such as organic suggestion and also that the symptom of hearing voices has been said to be an issue historically, before this invention category existed.
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One of the first public patents describing apparatus that allowed people to "perceive" or sense radio waves.
A non-specific sound is caused as a "sensation of hearing" in someone's head with microwave radio waves resonating in the auditory cortex.
"A system enabling individuals to communicate by way of monitored brain activity." By comparing the signals with previously recorded signals, you can work out what a person is thinking and potentially use some version of the radio hearing effect to reply. It is not apparent what type of thought it can cause a person to hear to enable communication, or if other types of thought than the sensation of hearing can be transmitted but seems to indicate that its possible to receive other types of thought. A mechanism for transmitting speech has not yet been patented.
A targeting system that can be used to directionally target individuals for the microwave radio waves that cause the Radio Hearing Effect.
All things to do with satellite technology and UFOs.
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Method of creating multiple hollograms in the air/sky from a satellite using lasers. The hollograms could be used for communications, they could take the form of any physical thing. Each satellite is supposed to cover a large area of the ground.
This is the patent for engine for the US Navy's fast ariel vehicle that has commonly published in newspapers as a US Navy UFO. When put together the actual engine is the shape of a disk like the classic design of a UFO.
Technology for influencing dream states and causing dreams.
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Cause certain types of dreams designed to help balance the person dreaming, the dreams are supposed to focus on the well being of the person dreaming. It uses recordings of the dreamer's voice played back at specific timings and volumes repetitively.
Allows a state of lucid dreaming (being aware of being in a dream) to be induced by using Transcranial Alternating Current Stimulation. It includes a method of testing the dream state the dreamer is in by using EEG readings.
Miscellaneous single patent inventions including a Tooth Tracking Device, and an interesting Vocal Chord Adjustment Device that can give you a different voice,
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A tracking device implanted as a tooth.
A system that can make people lose their voice or sound deeper or different.