Primarily Petroliana Shop Talk Forums Shop Talk Petroliana Forums General Petroliana Discussion Google Patents

Back during the summer, late at night (I have insomnia) I decided to start looking for gas pump company patents. Some nights I downloaded so many that Google cut me off (they can do that). I probably have over 500 patents downloaded.

The first thing I noticed is that very few companies bothered to patent their pumps, even companies like Tokheim and Wayne didn't bother much until the 60s and 70s. Some companies didn't bother at all.

If any of you are looking for a patent, email me, it only takes me a few minutes to look it up, and I will let you know where to find it.

One more thing, other than the date, the patents really won't tell you much as the companies would make changes even before the patent was issued.

Remember, it is not the date the date that the patent was issued (sometimes it took 5-6 even more years to be issued), it is the date the patent was applied for. Then subtract the time it took for the patent application to be put together, then subtract the time it took for the company to put together the item to be patented. Many times companies went into production of an item long before they even applied for a patent. They didn't care, who was going to question them.

About the only company that was able to receive a patent and prevent many companies from copying it, was Veeder-Root. After the mid-30s how many companies patented anything like the computer that V/R did? Interesting!

Let me know, if you want to see a patent for anything gas pump or air meter related.

Jack Sim

There is a pat in there for G&B from the 40's that is almost a copy of a veeder root and they issued a pat.

http://www.google.com/patents?id=sx1GAAA...ter&f=false
G&B PAT

Almost is the key word. As I understand it, you can patent something that is "almost" a copy of the original if it is an improvement on the original. Think mouse trap.
John

I have a couple of things that I invented and was advised against a patent. I was told to sell the heck out of them till someone comes up with something ALMOST like it then move on to something else. The ALMOST made it to where it wasnt worth patenting.
Rick