Simpson’s letter of April 7 arrived at the US Patent office and as usual wended its way through the mailroom, then down the majestic columned halls of the Patent Office until it came to rest in the pile of patent applications on Senior Patent Examiner, William Wilder Townsend’s desk.
Townsend had shown no sense of humor with respect to Simpson’s application for a mere game. It is possible that he thought games were beneath him, and the Patent Office, especially when there were so many more important patents to be granted.
He did however go through Simpson’s response and wrote one of the shortest responses ever to Simpson, possibly showing that he may actually have had a sense of humor. On April 20th he wrote:
Applicant’s statement that claim 1 has not been amended as suggested is not understood, unless it refers to the retention of the comma in line 4 of the claim, which could not possibly define a distinction over the references. The claim is still held to be substantially met in Miller, of record, and is again rejected.
For want of a comma a patent was almost lost!
One would hope that Simpson would see the humor in the rejection, however slight that might be.
About the author:
Thaddeus Cooper is the co-author of Seeking Redemption: The Real Story of the Beautiful Game of Skee-Ball, a deep dive into the history of the game. You can find more information about Thaddeus, and his co-author, and their book, at: http://www.nomoreboxes.com/.