20 Celebrity Patent Holders Include Only 1 Member of Legal Profession

Abraham Lincoln.  That’s it.  For Patent #6,469 — [Method of] Buoying vessels over shoals.  And he did not even attend a top-14 law school.

Now that Google introduced a patent search feature, the website Ironic Sans found it easy to compile a list and patent illustrations of Celebrity Patent Holders, including Prince, Zeppo Marx, Julie Newmar, Eddie Van Halen, Jamie Lee Curtis, Houdini, Mark Twain, Gary Burghoff [not for radar], Harry Connick Jr., and Marlon Brando.  My count: the only lawyer is Abe, though Connick’s dad was DA.  (No professional credit for gelled cranberry sauce, but inventor Marcus Urann was no American Idol either, I concede.)  Folks, we can do better!

Penn Jillette, too.  For basically a hot tub sexual stimulator.  In confirming that he does not happen to be a lawyer (so confirmed), I did find out that his daughter is named Moxie CrimeFighter Jillette.  Hedy Lamarr (that’s Hedly!) for a crypto device that has become the basis for modern CDMA cellphone technology.  And Michael J. Jackson patented the moon walk; claim 1 begins: “A system for engaging shoes with a hitch means to permit a person standing on a stage surface to lean forwardly beyond his or her center of gravity….”  Jackson is not a lawyer but has been amply supportive of the profession relevant to this blog.

I could not get some of the links to work, including Abe’s (others worked intermittently–likely the beta aspect of Patent Search), so maybe Sans is putting us on.  [Update:  Abe works now, honest.] I don’t think so, because the weirdest ones are definitely there.  And many of the comments after, FWIW, confirm these achievements and add to them–e.g., “Dude, you totally missed Tom Scholz from the band Boston. He has patents for the Polaroid One-step camera and the Rockman guitar amp!”   Whoa, Dude, take it easy, and don’t look back so much.  That’s more than a feeling you’re showing there.

[Alan Childress; Hat Tip to the Electronic Ephemera blog]