Did You Know...
...that the inventor of the electric motor was a blacksmith named Thomas Davenport? Described as "a brilliantly unsuccessful inventor", Davenport invented the first rotary electric motor. In 1836 he headed out -- on foot -- from his Vermont home to file a patent application at the Patent Office in Washington, D.C. By the time he got there, he had squandered away his money and couldn't afford the $30 filing fee so he turned around and went home. When he later mailed in his application with money he'd raised, the Patent office was destroyed in a fire. He did finally get credit for his invention on Feb. 5, 1837.
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| Number | Title | Issue Date |
| 7105942 | Plant, generator and propeller element for generating energy from watercurrents A plant, generator and rotating member for the production of power from currents in a body of water, comprising a fixedly mounted of floating structure, and a plurality of replaceable generator units (750) supported by the structure and which are driven by th... | 09/12/2006 |
| 7080459 | Thread ruler and a multi-function drafting instrument The Thread Ruler and Multi-Function Drafting Instrument is a single instrument designed to draw circles, ellipses and parallel lines, and which includes features that allow the instrument to function as protractor, a ruler and a drawing compass. The instrument has a... | 07/25/2006 |
| 6904697 | System for marking an arc segment This device facilitates field marking an arc of a circle having an obstructed center. It comprises a first clamp having a slot to engage a standard tape measure and a second clamp having another slot to engage a color-coded tape measure. A detachable swivel joint sn... | 06/14/2005 |
| 6308426 | Ellipsograph Disclosed is an ellipsograph for drawing an ellipse. A base member for defining one side, that is, a base of a triangle, is provided and fixed to a plane of a drawing sheet. A centering section and an ellipse drawing frame are installed at a middle of the... | 10/30/2001 |
| 6213779 | Conic section activity boards The present invention provides a variety of laminated plastic activity boards that allow the individual to visualize and have interactive exploration of conic sections and their definitions. This allows for more class time to be spent investigating the co... | 04/10/2001 |
| 5123171 | Irregular surface ellipsograph An apparatus, of a compact pocket-sized design, for the description of accurate ellipses of an infinite number of conjugate and transverse diameters on flat and/or irregular surfaces, such as spherical or horizontal and vertical cylindrical tanks, having ... | 06/23/1992 |
| 3947968 | Device for drawing ellipses A device for drawing ellipses comprises a measuring stick formed with a longitudunal slot closed at its ends, a cord having one end fixed to a first point on the measuring stick, a slide movable along the slot to align the indexing point thereof with a se... | 04/06/1976 |
