This past Monday, March 1, Rick Walker gave our club a presentation on “Wacky Patents”. Mark is a patent attorney and can speak from experience. Before he took to the wacky side, he explained to us the differences between Patents, Copyrights, Trademarks and Trade Secrets.
His PowerPoint presentation discussed many wacky patents that have been applied for over the years. Many were quite outrageous, such as, Prince’s patent on a guitar, Michael Jackson’s patent on a shoe enhancing device, a unicycle with training wheels, a portable electric mouse trap, an anti-eating face mask, cheese filtered cigarettes, an instant face lift device, a jaw exercise device, a snake handling leash, diapers for birds, several golf training aids, diapers for dogs, a light bulb changer, an electrified picnic blanket, a beer umbrella, a method for covering baldness (comb over), a cubed tennis ball, and a chopstick training device. Those were the more entertaining ideas and he presented many more.
Got an idea? Get a patent to protect it. (or a trademark, or a copyright, or designate it a trade secret)
Lastly, he gave a list of inventions that we should not try to patent: Waterproof towel, Glow in the dark sunglasses, solar powered flashlight, submarine screen doors, a book on how to read, inflatable dart boards, a dictionary index, dehydrated water (just add water), waterproof teabags, and a helicopter ejector seat.
The Rotary Club of Sandy Springs would like to thank Rick for showing us the lighter side of being an attorney.
More information about Rick can be found here: https://sandyspringsrotary.org/newsletter/show/1392
Rick is a partner at CBW – Clements Bernard Walker PLLC – More information about CBW can be found here: https://worldpatents.com/patent-law/