In Minnesota, May means the onset of warmer days, our short gardening season, and anticipation for our summer vacations. In May, we also pause to pay tribute to those serving in all branches of the U.S. military (on Armed Forces Day) and to honor and mourn those U.S. military personnel who died in service for our freedoms (on Memorial Day). However, what does any of that have to do with intellectual property?
It is no secret that that the U.S. Department of Defense, through the various branches of the military and through its contractors and research organizations, has been and continues to be a source of tremendous innovation. In this regard, the contributions to innovation from soldiers themselves (and in some cases their mothers – who are also celebrated in May) are often overlooked. There are quite a few inventions inspired by the soldiers’ need to improve their safety and make their time easier on the front lines. History is replete with problems that have been solved by soldiers, and those solutions have often led to the U.S. Patent Office.
An early soldier invention is the “Hanger Limb.” The Hangar Limb was developed after the Civil War by American engineer James Hanger, who was himself an amputee from the Civil War. Hanger invented an aluminum leg with adjustable tendons and rubber bumpers for shock absorption. His front-line injury was the impetus for a significantly improved artificial limb.
During WWII, 29-year-old Sergeant Curtis Culin invented a device that historians believe contributed to winning the Battle of Normandy. “Culin’s hedgerow cutter” solved the problem of poor mobility for tanks due to numerous hedgerows and natural field separation barriers throughout the Normandy countryside. Culin asked a commander what was being done about this problem and the commander lamented that his outfit did not have an answer – he was told to find a solution. Culin’s hedgerow cutter featured metal forks welded to a crossbar across the front of a tank. Tanks with the cutter attached were able to plow through those hedgerows and other barriers.
Almost everyone can find a roll of duct tape in their homes. Duct tape (aka duck tape) as we generally know it was conceived of by Vesta Stout in 1943. Stoudt was packing ammunition boxes for U.S. soldiers and recognized that the way ammunition boxes were sealed made them difficult for soldiers under fire to open quickly. She suggested the use of a waterproof strong cloth tape that could be torn open by hand – which coincidentally could also help her sons who were serving in the armed forces. Today, the uses of duct tape by the military (and for that matter, by everyone) are endless.
At least one other household product resulted from World War I battlefield nurses, who were using wood pulp/cellulose bandages to address soldier wounds. The nurses discovered that these bandages were highly absorbent and durable and thus found additional uses for them. One of those additional uses was to absorb their menstrual flow (i.e., the invention of disposable sanitary napkins). Similarly, soldiers used sheets of this same type of bandage material as gas mask filters during WWI (which eventually resulted in disposable handkerchiefs now better known as Kleenex tissues).
More recently, a collection of national guard members serving in Iraq invented a device that aimed to defeat the lethal improvised explosive devices (IEDs) scattered along Iraqi highways. The invention is a dual-purpose device: the device detonates the IED before a troop-carrying vehicle is on top of the IED, or the device prevents detonation of the IED. The national guard members mounted a six-foot boom on their vehicle that extended forward. Affixed to the boom were devices designed to detect and, if warranted, detonate an IED.
Many of the innovations above have found uses beyond the battlefield and have in turn triggered further innovation and new products. “Stay alert” – innovation and invention can happen when least expected!
