Posted by Scott Clark @ 8:34 am
Gizmodo and Google Patents Brought a Tear to my eye
Filed under: Strictly Personal
Feb
19
2007
19
2007
Mark Wilson at Gizmodo just referred us to the x-paste toothpaste despenser, a very cool-looking way to get toothpaste onto the brush and off of the counter that will be sold at Sharper Image. To most, this was just a cool gadget reference, something that Gizmodo does every day with great skill. But to me, it was much more.
It was the first blog post that brought a tear to my eye.
You see, my late grandfather patented a toothpaste dispenser as a part of his dream to escape the coal mining career that was slowly breaking his body (and, sometimes, his spirit.) He’d been bruised and had his arm broken by the billy clubs of state troopers as they broke the economically disasterous and sometimes violent coal mining strikes that plagued the land in the 1960s. The safety of coal mines was 
abysmal, in fact, his leg was crushed in a cave-in making it hard for him to work. So with his Ben Franklin notebook in hand, he sketched idea after idea, and in 1965, he took this one to a lawyer in the tiny town of Central City Kentucky, spending his savings to file patent 3,198,389 for the “Tooth Paste Dispensing Cabinet” shown here.
Modern technology and design has made the x-paste dispenser a true marvel that my Grandfather would have admired. But even with his fake-wood-grained version and its “denture tray” practicality, he is someone I admire for trying to use his brainpower to pull himself out of the hole where he spent his days. I think with a little more advice and time, he could have taken his product to the next level and made it into a success. For today, I’ll hear his voice in my head talking about it, once again seeing him trace the motion of the gears as they squeeze the toothpaste onto the brush there at the kitchen table of their tiny house, and for a moment I’ll see it hanging on my bathroom wall signed “TBD, Inventor.”
Update: A great post about starting small with a new product was found over here at newsday.com. I thought it was relevant to this post. Perhaps it would have been a better way for him to go than to go directly to GE and Sunbeam, like he did.
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19
2007
I have a couple of friends whose father created a handful of patents during the 1960s, and about a year ago, they had asked me if it was possible to get copies of those off the internet, since they didn’t have any copies of the ones that he filed.
At the time, it wasn’t - but with Google’s patent search it is now. Your post reminds me that I should make copies of those for them. Thanks.
21
2007
Nice story Scott,
My father was a great tinkerer too , and I guess thats where I got my `why` genes! I truly admire those of a creative spirit and yet as you have demonstrated there`s nothing really new out there - just a new take on an old idea - so may i pay homage to your grandfather. i`d be delighted if you`d invest inan X-paste - it really really does work!!
Cheers!
stewart
30
2007
[...] been established manually (if ever.) I mean, check out Google patents…. it’s fun (and sometimes emotional) to pop around and discover relationships this way. Before you know it, we’ll have some [...]