You’ll recall that last year (last year – that’s important) I came up with the EcoMo™, my revolutionary, environmentally friendly, guinea-pig-powered lawnmower. Fuelled by the grass it cuts, the EcoMo™ fertilizes the ground as it goes, and has high-tech self-sharpening blades made out of a super-tough organoceramic composite grown from structured nanoparticles (well, it’s enamel, innit?)
The prototype EcoMo™ Model 4GPP, yesteryear
Imagine my surprise when I opened my copy of science and technology mag BBC Focus (issue 192, Summer 2008) at the Letters page. One Christopher Buckton refers to June’s issue in which several robot lawnmowers were tested against a natural alternative – a sheep.
- I have to say you omitted the best candidate – guinea pigs
says Mr Buckton.
- They will happily graze in an area with 18cm-high borders to pen them in. They mow to an acceptable croquet lawn finish, and fertilise and trample flat the grass along the way.
BBC Focus made Mr Buckton’s letter their Letter of the Month, and gave him a neat radio-controlled helicopter. Not sure what this has to do with guinea pigs, but the message is clear. Guinea-pig-powered lawnmowers are the latest, coolest, must-have, ahead-of-the curve gadgets.
Remember: you read it here first
Next week:
- Tulips from hamster jam;
- The rabbit-powered iPod;
and
- The budget airline powered by chickens.
I wonder what the patent laws say about blog posts. If a certain Mr. Buckton forges ahead with his invention of a guinea pig lawnmower, he might have a serious law suit on his hands. You thought of it first!
Only in the US is it first to invent. Everywhere else it is first to file.
Everywhere else it is first to file.
The race is on …
If you attached the guinea pigs to a radio controlled helicopter you could control unruly shrubbery, too.
Well, I was thinking more along the lines of a kind of air-sea rescue service for distressed hamsters.
Chicken?! You should publish!
Sorry, Sabine, didn’t quite catch that. Did you mean
or was your demand more imperative and directed at one of my chickens? and if so, which one? And publish what?
“I know, dear, but it’s very difficult to think about the interaction between ZRANB2 and ZNF265 when there is a Canis familiaris trying to shove its rostrum up my cloaca.”
“Rectum?”
“Oh, my, I do hope it won’t go as far as that.”
Re: Only in the US is it first to invent. Everywhere else it is first to file.
Not to be a killjoy, but blogging about an invention or writing a letter to the editor about it constitutes ‘prior art’. Neither of you can now safely patent in Europe as the idea is in the public domain.
But that doesn’t mean we can’t all come up with something else fun and mysterious to do with the various beasts and fowl at our disposal and make a mint (Mentha piperita [Linn.]).
Well, I have just written to the Editor of BBC Focus, Jheni Osman, to claim Prior Art, giving her the link to this blog … :)
… and Jheni has written back. “Brilliant”, she says, indicating that my claim will be aired on the BBC Focus letters page. Could the war of the techno-cavies be breaking out? Or will be have to arrange an honorable Darwin-Russel truce?
Henry! I have the answer… to my own question. Your blog post is indeed considered prior art under US patent law. I quote, “Henry Gee’s blog posting would most likely be available as prior art (and used against a grant of a patent).” Take a look in the Patent Law group. I would like some form of kick back the sale of Gee-patentede guinea pig powered mower, FYI.
Now that I think about it, I would like to use this comment for shameless propaganda – everyone take a look at the Patent Law Primer group on NN. If you have a question (either of the burning or warm-to-the-touch variety) about intellectual property law, post it in the group. It will be answered by real live patent attorneys.