13 SpoOooOky Patents That Will Give You Nightmares

13. Vampire Shaped Pasta

U.S. Des. Patent No. 321,272 S

This noodle vants to suck your blood!

12. New Cultivar of Witch Hazel

U.S. Pla. Patent No. 12,549 P2 

This patent is for a new cultivar, or cultivated variety, of a species of Chinese witch hazel, Hamamelis mollis.  Witch Hazel is a genus of flowering plants in the family Hamamelidaceae, and has its roots in magic and folklore for several centuries. 

Native Americans have long used witch hazel to alleviate a wide range of ailments, and introduced its many uses to early colonial settlers.  [1].  The Iroquois brewed witch hazel tea to cure coughs and colds, the Potawami steamed the twigs of the witch hazel to sooth sore muscles, and the Osage employed its bark to cure skin ulcers and sores.  [2].

In witchcraft, witch hazel is believed to protect against evil spirits and to be a cure for broken hearts.  [3].  Other witches used branches of witch hazel as divining rods (more on that later). 

Unfortunately, the specification for this patent is silent on whether the new cultivar can ward off demons.

11. Skeleton Halloween Decoration

U.S. Des. Patent No. 332,420 S

Where them bones at??? 

Oh, here lies dem bones!

10. Trick or Treat Board Game

U.S. Patent No. US 5,662,328 A

The perfect board game to bring to Halloween game night! 

The board game is a single endless path filled with trick-or-treat houses.  To play the game, one player is the vampire, one player is the witch, and the rest are trick-or-treaters.  The goal of the trick-or-treaters is to go around the board, collect a treat from each of the trick-or-treat houses, and return to their starting position before any of the other players.  The goal of the vampire and the witch is to steal as many treats from the trick-or-treaters as possible before returning to their starting position.  Whichever of any of the players achieves their respective goal first wins the game.  

9. Ouija Board from 1921

U.S. Patent No. 1,400,791 A

Who doesn’t love a vintage Ouija board?  This patent alleges that “[b]y a series of actual tests, the Ouija board embodied in the present construction has been demonstrated a success in the performance of the purposes for which it is designed.”  Which . . . seems to suggests the inventors performed several séances and in at least one of them they were able to contact the dead. I just want to know who it was!

8. Ventriloquist's Dummy

U.S. Patent No. 2,114,851 A

The only thing more unsettling than the figure itself is the number of times “jaw member” is used in the specification.  Something about that term gives me the heebee jeebies.

7. Let the Not Dead Rise

 U.S. Patent No. 81,437 A

Are you terrified of a loved one being buried alive?  

Well, you can totally prevent that from happening by making sure they are actually dead before you bury them.  But if that’s too much of a hassle, just purchase this coffin and it won’t matter if they are dead or alive, because they’ll be able to get out!

 A tube is installed over the coffin and inside the tube is a ladder and a rope.  One end of the rope is placed in the hand of the potentially deceased, and the other is attached to a bell that’s located outside on a tombstone.  If it turns out that your loved one buried six feet under is in fact still alive, they can use the rope to ring the bell, or alternatively climb up the ladder out of the coffin.  Easy peasy.

6. Sea Creature Swim Mask

U.S. Des. Patent No. 431,856 S

Scare everyone in the pool with this creepy sea creature mask!

5. Portable Tomb to Resurrect Mummies

U.S. Patent No. 5,987,720 A

Yes, you read that right!  It’s a tomb that not only houses a mummy, but you can take it on the go! 

To be clear, the patent does not claim that they have the current technology to resurrect a mummy, but rather “[i]n several millennia DNA may be recovered and an organism resurrected as in the fantasy portrayed in a motion picture.”  

In the meantime, use this portable tomb to . . . take the mummy on vacations until we have the technology to resurrect it, like in that one movie, where things went super well for everyone after the mummy was resurrected.  

4. Ghost Wand!

U.S. Patent No. 7,486,069 B2

Or, alternatively, “an indicator rod responsive to environmental variations.”  But I like Ghost Wand.

The Ghost Wand is a 21st century version of the virgula divina (or divining rod), or a forked branch of a hazel tree.  As the background section explains, when the virgula divina detects a spirit, it will bend or flex in their direction, allowing a person to find their ghost friend <3.  However, the efficacy of the virgula divina “is limited by the stiffness of the wood with which it is fabricated.”  If you really want to see ghosts, you can’t be limited by how dry your local hazel trees are! 

Instead, let the Ghost Wand guide you to the nearby spirits haunting the abandoned Radio Shack in your suburban hometown.  It’s far more flexible and responsive to ghosts than a stick of wood.

3. Preserving the Dead in a Glass Box

U.S. Patent No. 7,48,284 A

If taxidermy doesn’t appeal to you, consider this option instead.  Preserve a whole corpse (or just the head, “if preferred”) by surrounding the corpse with a thick layer of sodium silicate, heating to remove the water, and then encasing the whole thing with molten glass.  You may then mold the glass in your desired shape, like a rectangle, or a cylinder, if that’s more your style. 

Me personally, I’m more of a head in a box than a body in a cylinder, but to each their own!

2. A Terrifying Jack-O-Lantern

U.S. Des. Patent No. 171,363 S

This legitimately may be the scariest Halloween decoration I have ever laid my eyes on.

1. A Watch that Displays a Countdown to Your Inevitable Death

U.S. Patent No. 5,031,161 A

An omnipresent yet incredibly convenient reminder of how much time you have left to live, down to the second!  This watch calculates the rest of your remaining life, and can provide a user their customized life expectancy based on family history, how often they exercise, their weight, whether they smoke or drink alcohol, and, of course, whether they are from a small town (+4 years!) or from a city (-2 years), or have a tense or nervous disposition (-1 to -5 years).

If you aren’t sure what your loved one wants for the upcoming holidays, consider a combo gift of this watch and a life insurance policy in their name as a terrible option.

Sources

[1] Tran. “Witch Hazel: Winter Wisdom.” Lewis Ginter Botaical Garden. Feb. 16, 2017. <https://www.lewisginter.org/witch-hazel-winter-wisdom/>.

[2] Id.

[3] Id.

Disclaimer on this Article

Any of the above descriptions of the patents or patent claims listed herein are humorous and deeply unserious interpretations, and should not in any way be considered actual claim interpretation.