In every field there’s a long history of invention, some of it quite… unusual. Finding these unusual inventions and blogging about them can be a great source of both entertainment and sometimes education.
A client of mine – a singing teacher – was looking for something fun to blog about and I suggested she try Google Advanced Patent Search. Use a keyword related to your business – in this case “voice” – and then limit the search to a period around the turn of the 20th century. There were a lot of very strange patents filed in that period, plus the timing ensures that they’re in the public domain.
Here are the first results my client got:
Notice at the top of the screen you can adjust the search by time period, most patent offices from around the world, and by other patent criteria.
The very first result for “voice” looked interesting. My client helps people correct voice issues, so a Voice Rectifier might be related to that. Clicking on the link, she was presented with all relevant information about the device, and most importantly, the patent drawings.
When you click on the image, you get a large version that you can download and use in your post.
In this case, my client talked in the post about the lengths to which people would go to try and fix their voices – that image does look very painful! She then talked briefly about why modern approaches, like the ones she uses, are more effective, and linked to her voice lessons page.
You could also talk about how the invention hit on an important point, even if it went about it in a wrong or particularly strange way.
You could talk about how the invention was a precursor to something we take for granted today.
There are a lot of fun and interesting angles you could take in a piece about old patents. And, as I hope you saw from this example, finding those patents is quite easy.
I found it interesting that there were a lot of very strange patents filed around the turn of the 20th century. Many of these inventions didn’t make it to the stores but there are so many things that people were able to create that did make it to the public. Things like the self-ringing mop or a dust collecting cleaning pad. These inventions have all affected life in the home, all thanks to the ability to receive a patent.
It was an amazing time in human history, I think, because there was so much science that had been done in the preceding century, waiting for some practical applications and so you had all these amazing (and sometimes weird) ideas exploding onto the scene.