Flat-Cat #2: Pat Pending

The value of a patent these days is debatable: one of my flying studes in London did act on behalf of the builder who invented the ratcheted silicone gun back in the day and would travel to China ~ where practically all were manufactured ~ in an effort to enforce the patent. Told me they'd go to court and the factory would close down and be up and running farther down the street a day or two later. US did the same to the UK circa 250 years ago, but the good news is we'll be able to do the same to China in due time, if indeed there are any factory buildings left either here or there.

But there was a time I'd be up all night feverishly drafting patents, and beside this I have to admit that Professor Pat Pending was my favourite Wacky Racer as a child.

Normally you don't share the content of an application or 'spec' but we're a caring, sharing community here at the blog and besides, you don't know whether I have filed any 'divisionals' which describe supplementary secret squirrels... so do you feel lucky, punk?

But print it off and let's treat it as a young person's guide to the patent process. It does have its uses, as King James I said when his courtiers patented the idea. For instance the 'Dragons' on the BBC's programme ~ for which I auditioned years ago ~ put undue value on one, which is surprising in view of the fact none of them know jack-shit about design or engineering. In fact as often as not patents work to inhibit the spread of good ideas, which is kind of the opposite of what was intended.

Anyhow, quiet at the back please, and turn to your printouts:

First off we've to establish what it is we're trying to invent in simple terms, which is why I've described it as a flat-packed watercraft. Reasonable?

Then we've to say why everything else out there is fairly useless, and how ours is set to change the world of boating for ever and ever.

Then there is a big-picture paragraph describing what we intend to do with it, and as an agent once told me, you want to add as much as you can think of in reason, which is why I've thrown in that casual reference ~ as might Superman ~ to notions that it might fly too. Keen followers of my work will recall that was something we'd have loved for flat-cat version 1.0, which was much the same as this albeit without wiiings.

Now we turn to the diagram or diagrams with which we shall flesh out the invention.

I have to admit at this point that the 'drawing' as they call it is literally sketchy, but that does not matter unduly for three reasons. Firstly if they don't like it (and as it's an online process and staff will have been cut to the bone, they likely won't even be looking) then they will tell you, and secondly we can re-file a duplicate with a better drawing altogether and claiming 'priority' from this one. Thirdly a lot of nutters out there file patent applications, and theirs are even worse, believe me.

The way I have always done this is old school viz. I build a model, take a photo of it and send it to a nice man who used to be in Birmingham to get it suitably rendered. Actually he's married a Latvian and now lives there, where they insist on business being done against a registered VAT (sales tax) account... which involves me paying a mate of mine with a company and transferring the cash. This is the reason Gen Z are unlikely to bother when video-streaming's out there.

Now you can only patent one aspect or single invention at a time and a basic outline does not cut it, firstly because we've disclosed such methods to the world online and secondly because the examiner is likely to point out it's not that unique, if all things are taken into account.

This is where we have literally to be inventive and what I have done is to suggest the boat is not simply flat-packed, but also foldable or collapsible when not in use; and I've left absent whether the two halves might be separate too or whether the upper parts remain intact during the process. Technically each side is not 'handed' and could be used for either side, which is an argument for them being independent so that if one gets pranged, you could substitute a spare.

If you think of things subs, incidentally, you can post a 'technical disclosure' online that renders them public and would invalidate any competitive patent. It was too an idea originated in the UK, adopted vigorously by the likes of IBM subsequent. There is a long-established company that charges for it, but you can do it for free at the Digital Commons... who send you a monthly round-up of the number of downloads each submission has enjoyed.

Essentially the description as revealed in the text associated with the diagrams is a step-by-step account of how practically such a thing can be built, and this may have to be demonstrated in court as patents are technically legal documents. This would be a great day out for the blog and one giant leap for blog-kind, but quite unlikely.

What we're trying to do here essentially is to deconstruct the idea of boats at a time when it is in many ways overdue. As the author of On Walden Pond pointed out though it is fine building a castle in the air, but at some stage we've to get out there and get our hands dirty, or wet.

I hope though you've enjoyed this literary excursion and that it put you off for good, however?

The fact we've filed on Jul 1st though means it's an easy date to remember, seeing as it's the start of the second half of the year. We needn't do much until nearer the anniversary, or spend any money and even then we can file an international patent providing six months further grace.

By then tho' I'll have invited you all in, and been jailed for illegal share-trading.

Ed. No charge for illustrations: the digital honesty box on our merch page set to process $100.

Con Trail

Around 50% of YouTube is AI slop, a further 40% angry people shooting off and the remainder (for reasons I can't fathom and this one's garnered over 750 comments in less than a fortnight) footage of aircraft landing when it's windy.

For whatever reason too, their authors feel obliged to embellish the thumbnail, and in this case a contrail has been added to an airliner in the final stage of an approach to Birmingham Airport.

Naturally after a glass of Hock my own comment read:

Think you'll find they're SOMEWHAT BELOW THE 'MINTRA' LEVEL... ROT IN HELL, LOSER!!!

198 LW (Reprise)

In a Hands across the Irish Sea gesture we are indebted to Galway's Tommy Ruddy for the final fifteen minutes of BBC Radio 4's longwave output... and on what looks to be Pye's magnificent 1780 model unless I'm mistaken!

And how easy to operate in contrast to navigating a screen: ON/OFF, volume, tone and band selector besides an auto-tune toggle for wavering FM frequencies.

There again I can't see a means of tuning anywhere... crap these old radios.

Nonetheless let's ignore that for a moment to enjoy 'Sailing By' or the tune that has preceded the late shipping forecast for more than fifty years:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxKbOxgMe0Q

Ed. No aerial required for LW reception... stick that up your modulated frequencies.

Flat-Cat #1: Logo

Let's stay in our comfort zone shall we, interspersing reflections on life with periodic builds of the boat?

If you're a young person, you'll know it's not at all easy to get a conventional means of employment these days and while Daddy's in favour of Universal Basic Income, it is unlikely to happen any time soon.

That clever man John Maynard Keynes said in the 1930s that by now we'd all work just three days a week and then only if we wanted to, whereas in what I'm doing driving trucks I have to sign away the 'right' to work no more than a 48-hour week, as indeed I had as an airline pilot.

So what we'll do here is set about putting something together that might elevate our current circs at least, whilst providing us with a little more satisfaction and not a little entertainment. The man who started Linux in this way said that all things stem from military requirements prior moving into commercial spheres and ending up as entertainment. You can sort of see that with drones as you enjoy grainy vids of them blowing up ships and radar installations, can't you!

Well first up we need a name, and whilst I like the idea of TELEDRONE because after all it's me droning away on telly, I prefer the idea of something more generic like flat-cat; because after all it's flat, and its a cat -amaran. You might want to consider a trademark, but this really is 'old-world' stuff that only corporations can afford and trade between themselves. It rarely helps individuals, except perhaps by lightening their wallets.

The oldest trademark is reputedly a simple red triangle that was registered by the Bass brewery in the UK, and they still use it. If we were to trademark our venture we would have the choice of doing so for simply the word viz. flat-cat, else a logo. Patent offices do not tend to approve marks that literally describe what something is and might therefore object to the word itself being applied for, in which event we'd have to revert to a logo.

A benefit of a logo is it's universal and independent of language, which the social network once called 'The Facebook' has achieved with a simple 'F' albeit in a typeface of their own devising.

On that note we need a logo that doubles as a button on a smartphone and below there is one both I and my son like, though we do both prefer cats alive than dead.

I'm not going to register it because I'm done with IP, though it would be difficult for you to do so too now that you've seen it here because technically any piece of art* like that I've drafted here is subject copyright. Technically it means you can't use it for seventy years following my decease, so you'll be maybe a centenarian and past building things unless you're Elon Musk?

So here's hoping this is one pussy he'll never gets his hands on!

* Ed. Or piece of shit, like what's generally promulgated here...

The Liverpool Vicarious

Multi-sheaf document here on the legendary breakfast-bar that will be informing the recycling bin moreso than me and something my insurer expects me to contemplate in lieu of a life.

The story instructive and one that Mrs T herself would have relished, dear reader.

Liverpool's Victoria friendly society was established in 1843 as a means by which a pauper could fund a decent funeral ~ of which it provided over 200 within the first year and a half.

Wind forward a century or more and Liverpool Victoria Friendly Society becomes Liverpool Victoria Financial Services; insurance separate from life sold to German giant Allianz.

Liverpool, not least due its connection to shipping, was once a hub of insurance in the UK, although LV's HQ would be transferred to London in the 1920s and later to Bournemouth on the south coast, doubtless due the costs of being in the capitol. 

(As a result of Liverpool's role in finance and Manchester's in manufacture, it used to be said there were Manchester 'men' and Liverpool 'gentlemen').

As we saw with Alton Towers, it's as ever foreign capital in the driving seat and tho' it's not derived from Wall Street this time, it is likely only because Europe resists ~ as with its airlines ~ broader foreign ownership.

Does it make any difference to the man at the breakfast-bar?

Not really, no.

Naval Gazing

I'd be the first to admit I'm all talk and no neoprene trousers, but take a walk in my flip-flops if you would?

I visited his exhibitions in London and Brussels and the workshop in Antwerp, and I like to think that I'm standing on the shoulders of a giant in the shape of installation artist Panamarenko. In the end he'd produced nothing practical whatsoever, though inspired any number of us with a glimpse of the possible when it came to motivating us in both literal and figurative ways.

As I survey my designs and patent applications filed over decades, or my empire of dirt as Johnny Cash suggested I call it, I have to remind myself it's brought a lot of joy to at least one of us. That said, as I said to one of the founders of the UK's now fairly-shit NESTA initiative, the reason no-one else is ever going to exert themselves developing any of your ideas is that it is like asking them to bring up your kids for you.

We are, therefore, stuck with it: my efforts to execute unorthodox designs and you laughing at them. If we're going down that route however, we have at least as the first half of 2026 expires to ask ourselves what we hope to get out of it in the long-term?

Well keen followers of the 'blog will have noted a recent craving for a simpler build altogether, and whilst simply building it in my head is as appealing as ever, we're a hands-on community of makers and shakers, aren't we?

Accordingly let's enumerate our very own hierarchy of needs:

(1)    I don't want to build a company, and nor do you, but I do want to build a boat

(2)    It has to be scalable to transport (or rescue) a person, but still inspire drones

(3)    It has to be transferable to places like the Med where circs are more amenable

(4)    It has to be available to aero- and screw-propellers alike, ideally electrified

(5)    It has to be able to hover, plane on water and operate in ground-effect

(6)    It must be flat-packed for assembly and storage

(7)    It has to look so good that others want one too

(8)    It has to be cheaper and faster than any other 

(9)    It has to have less impact on the planet

(10)  It has to make people give me money

I think you will agree that these are noble aims altogether, albeit not those Mother Teresa would be willing to sign off on? Accordingly now's the time to print them off, stick them on the fridge and re-dedicate yourselves to them daily, as I hope to do.

Clauses (8) and (9) are each as good an aim as any, they requiring less material to build fast-moving watercraft and less energy to propel them. Of the 12 million boats registered in the US, for example, any number are (literally) forever boats that are being abandoned in waterways for someone else to clear up when the party's over.

Thus my promise to you for the remaining half of 2026 is that whatever is baptised here in the shitty waters hereabouts will feature that sketch, the whole sketch and nothing but the sketch.

We shall revisit each of those points in turn, though I realise you've had all you can take for one day. Yet with the month of June slipping away, we're holding steady at 60,000 views per month on this hailing frequency alone.

Tail Wags Dog

Am loving this because ~ talking of circles ~ we've come full circle in boating terms.

A company in France, where they still make things, has re-introduced the long-tail outboard in electrical form. You like I will only have been aware of these from either visits to transport museums like those in Berlin or Istanbul, else while being terrified in Thailand at being driven at high-speed along the waterways of Bangkok.

Ironically, tho' it would appear more obvious to put a propeller on a stick as here, the original outboard patent filed by a Frenchman in 1880 featured an upright type; albeit chain-driven instead of requiring a gear-box to turn a perpendicular driveshaft through ninety degrees. This may have been done first by Evinrude in the US, but I can't be bothered with the due diligence.

It had to wait until 1904 before another Frenchman would devise a long-tail like that here. It would flourish however in the Far East, where it was the ideal way to repurpose scrap auto-engines, and where they would not be shut down for mincing small children.

They're asking £1200 for the extendable entry-level prop-on-a-stick and £1800 for a carbon-fibre version: each of which deliver the equivalent of 1.50 horsepower.

Product design tho' it's ever France, Italy, Japan and James Dyson in the play-offs.

Ed. Dog not included.