HEW ZEALAND PATENTS.

Waikato Times, Volume XXX, Issue 2477, 26 May 1888, Page 2 (Supplement)

HEW ZEALAND PATENTS.

During the year 18S7 '198 applications were made in New Zealand for Letters Patent, and out of the total number of applicants 39 came from Great Britain, 19 from the United States, 57 from Australia, and 11 from France, Germany, Russia and Sweden, the remainder being from persons within the colony. The New Zealand applications are divided as follows :—Auckland heads the list with 120 ; next comes Otago, 77; Canterbury, 63 ; Wellington, 60 ; Southland, 15 ; Hawkes' Bay, 14 ; Taratiaki, 10 ; Nelson, 8; Westland, 3 ; and Marlborough, 2. Coming nearer home out of the Auckland contingent, Alexandra claims 3, and Cambridge, Hamilton, Te Awamutu and Te Aroha have one each. The inventions sought to be patented cover a very wide range of subjects, from a shampoo lotion to the electric light, from egg-producing food to life saving apparatus, or from a tobacco pipe cleaner to marine and locomotive engines. Agricultural and pastoral industries receive, as is fitting, the largest share of attention, fifty-five applications being made for new inventions or improvements in wool presses, chaff-cutters, seedsowers, manure distributors, harrows, etc., etc., but the mining industry runs these closely, as, independent of about a dozen patents sought for other mining purposes, thirty are applied for having sole reference to gold-mining. Wirefencing brings twenty-two inventors to the front, and the rabbits are responsible for thirteen; indeed, wirefencing and rabbits often appear to go together, as in several instances an inventor applies for patents for contrivances in each of these lines. No less than nineteen applications refer to the laundry, either in the form of washing machines or washing compounds, and out of the total 498 nine inventions are christened " The Jubilee so-and-so " in honour of Her Majesty's jubilee occurring in the year. Some of the applications read rather curiously. For instance, Messrs Maxted, R., and Holford, W. H., of Masterton, W. an improved screw wrench, to be called ' The Simplex Grip' ; a combined bustle and seat, to be called "The Victoria jubilee bustle," also an improved slide for crosshead of steam, marine, stationary, and locomotive engines," etc., etc. What a combination! The combined bustle, ctc., seems a good idea though, and probably some other ingenious person may bring out this year a combined bustle and market basket, or a combined bustle and life raft, or something of that kind. "The mechanical circus rider trainer," for which Mr D. J. Fitzgerald, of Christehurch, wants a patent, must also be rather a remarkable affair, and one is inclined to wonder if the circus business is of so extensive a nature as to cause a sufficient demand for mechanical trainers to provide a market for the invention. Mr Greenshield's " Jubilee effervescing tumbler" must be indeed a wonder; how the effervescent uature of the fluid a tumbler may contain | can be imparted to the vessel itself is a puzzle, and many people would be almost afraid to drink out of a glass that would effervesce on its own account. " The absolute safety pocket protection" of Messrs Hawes and Flatman of Southbrook, will be likely to fall flat on the market in these times of depression, as so few people have anything in their pockets worth protecting ; but perhaps the fat man of the firm has found the need of such an invention in by gone days. Mr Oliver W., of Canonbury, London, comes out with a puzzler : "An improved method of administering galvanic electricity, combined with an advertising apparatus." Is the advertisement administered to the recipient of the dose of electricity only ? Because, if it is so, sufficient publicity will scarcely be obtained to make this method of advertising pay. But, happy thought, an instance is on record of a man struck by lightning, having the picture of a tree, under which he was sheltering, printed on his body by the electric current during a storm. Perhaps Mr Oliver's contrivance is of a similar nature, and the galvanised patient may in gratitude for his recovery, consent to have electrically printed on his brow, a testimonial to the virtues of Epps' Cocoa, Seigel's Syrup, or what not. It is satisfactory to find that Auckland holds such a prominent position in the list, and that the manifold inventions may be of real service to the colony must be the desire of every one.