Patent
Samuelson did not patent his invention, nor was his work sufficiently publicized at the time to prevent U.S. Patent 1,559,390 for water skis from being subsequently issued, on October 27, 1925, to prolific inventor Fred Waller of Huntington, New York. Waller marketed his product as "Dolphin Akwa-Skees." Waller later invented the Cinerama wide-screen motion picture system, and in 1952's "This is Cinerama," the first feature film released in the panoramic format, water skiing at Cypress Gardens, Florida, was a prominently-featured subject. Famed journalist Lowell Thomas was an early investor in Cinerama, and in his introduction to the book "Water Skiing" (1958, Prentice-Hall), by Dick Pope, Sr., creator of Cypress Gardens, Thomas described the connection between Waller and water skiing's prominence as a subject in the motion picture. In several instances in the book, Pope reiterates—erroneously, we now know—that Waller was the first to invent water skis.
Read more about this topic: Ralph Samuelson
Famous quotes containing the word patent:
“This is the patent age of new inventions
For killing bodies, and for saving souls,
All propagated with the best intentions.”
—George Gordon Noel Byron (1788–1824)
“There is a patent office at the seat of government of the universe, whose managers are as much interested in the dispersion of seeds as anybody at Washington can be, and their operations are infinitely more extensive and regular.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)
“The cigar-box which the European calls a “lift” needs but to be compared with our elevators to be appreciated. The lift stops to reflect between floors. That is all right in a hearse, but not in elevators. The American elevator acts like the man’s patent purge—it works”
—Mark Twain [Samuel Langhorne Clemens] (1835–1910)