The Logic Off Topic list

At 8:21 AM -0500 8/3/01, Lee Blaske wrote:
>  >Dennis Gunn wrote:
>>>    While I worked in a patent law firm in the 80's I prosecuted and
>>>    successfully obtained a patent for an invention that consisted of no
>>>    more than a piled stone jetty completely encircling a body of water.
>>>    Can you guess what it did?
>
>I remember seeing something like this off the coast of St. Malo,
>France. It was a swimming pool (and also included a diving board).
>The jetty wasn't in place to keep out jellyfish or sharks. Rather,
>the purpose was to keep the pool filled with water when the tide went
>out. The water in that area was generally pretty shallow, and perhaps
>the area within the jetty was also dug out a bit. When the tide was
>in, the water washed over the top of the pool and filled it up.
>
>I hope they weren't infringing on your patent, but it looked as if
>this pool had been there forever.
>
>Lee Blaske


Ok I will tell.  First I am sorry if I was in any way misleading but 
it was not *my*  patent what I meant is I successfully prosecuted the 
application for a client.


When I read the original patent application the basic concept behind 
it just about made me sick.

The sea around Japan is very polluted.   The of the jetty purpose is 
to purify a small body of water as a habitat for sensitive animals or 
for swimming or whatever.

The way it works is that the cracks and crannies of the Jetty form a 
habitat for barnacles shellfish and lots of kinds of microscopic 
scavengers.  As tide and wave action push the water through the jetty 
it is scoured by the animals in it with the result that the water 
within the enclosed space is measurably purer than that in the 
surrounding sea.

It may strike one as unlikely to work well enough to justify the cost 
of building it but in the documentation examples were given where the 
invention had been built and successfully put to use in a few 
locations.

Personally I would have preferred that they simply stop polluting the 
sea so much in the first place.



Although several people came close nobody quite nailed the answer and 
that's too bad because the grand prize was a mint conditioned leather 
interior 1963 cherry red 12 cylinder Jaguar.  Oh well maybe next time.
-- 


                                 Dennis Gunn
                                 Mightyjohn@...

                  check out  MIGHTY JOHN HENRY's album "hot air head"
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