Trick or Patent! Halloween patents

Halloween is tomorrow, and is a favorite American holiday.  It certainly is in my house, as we have a giant spiderweb (with spider), ghosts, skeletons, and lights outside.  And of course… candy.  But Halloween and trick-or-treating raise important questions – questions that cry out for inventive responses.  Questions like, how can my kids carry candy – as much as possible, of course – easily, and without spilling any?  How can my kids dress in scary costumes, stay safe, and adapt to a range of weather conditions?  (No, really: yesterday it was 70° in Boston, it could be 35° tomorrow night.)  How can I scare trick-or-treaters coming to my house?  How can I display a jack-0-lantern?  Can I make jack-0-lanterns without any real work?  Don’t be spooked: for these and other undying (undead?) questions, I present a Top Ten list of Halloween Patents.

10. Light-up Mask

In a vote for safety, I start this halloween patent list with US patent 6035447, a light-up mask.  This provides safety and visibility of your little trick-or-treater, and as this patent illustration shows, can also look spooky.  Plus, you can move the lights around in the mask.  Which is cool.  (To be thorough, and safe, here’s a lawyerly disclaimer related to Halloween and trick-or-treating: please look at the US Centers for Disease Control and Prevention’s Halloween Health and Safety Tips, including a suggestion related to masks.)

9. Haunting Aid 

How can you dislike a patent titled “Haunting Aid”?  I can’t either!  Besides providing a light-up ghost or other spooky item, US patent 6776687 includes Easter, er, Halloween, eggs such as “one needs to be a grave robber in order to afford the lit-up props available today”.  Run, don’t zombie-walk, to get what you need to haunt your crypt.  This one suggests using LEDs for lights, so you can scare or entertain trick-or-treaters while feeling environmentally responsible this Halloween.

8. Novelty halloween pumpkin 

Sure, you want to have a jack-o-lantern out for Halloween.  And you meant to buy a pumpkin and carve it.  But you just didn’t get to it this year.  Well, fear not!  US patent 3250910 is for a two-faced pumpkin-shaped item, that has a jack-o-lantern face on one side, and a “comical character” on the other side.  Both can be lit, and lit differently from each other, of course, so you can startle trick-or-treaters as the come and go.  And you can keep it for next year, too.

7. Weather adaptive Halloween costume

Dress in layers: great advice for hikers, athletes, and trick-or-treaters too.  For your Halloween entertainment, here’s an elephant costume, in US patent 6904612, that can be adapted to warm or cold conditions.  Here in Boston, that can mean the difference between disappointed kids, and collecting enough candy to make your dentist very happy.

6. Trick or treat bag 

Speaking of collecting candy… you’re going to need a way to carry it.  US patent 6145553 provides a trick-or-treat bag for collecting that candy, with a lid that opens – and looks like a scary face! – and two channels to have the candy deposited in the “mouth” and then drop into a receptacle or holding area.  Your kids are sure to enjoy it.

5. Pumpkin support and decorating device 

The good news is, you’ve bought a pumpkin and carved it.  The bad news is, it’s not standing up right.  Or looking enough like a cartoon character – or a certain set of decorations that go with a well-known potato.  Well, US patent application 20060231727 has you covered!  As this application points out, there are already a number of devices for “holding gourd-related fruit”.  But this one has “a metatarsus section for cooperatively securing the support stand to the pumpkin”!  And, you can put it on any pumpkin you carve, or draw a face on.  Lookin’ good!

4. Jack-o-lantern display stand

Congrats!  This year, you’ve managed to buy a pumpkin and carve it as a jack-o-lantern.  But, it doesn’t have a perfect back, and so it doesn’t sit right on your front steps or in your window.  Or maybe you don’t want to put a candle in it, and you want it to have a motion sensor.  And to make sounds.  And to rotate.  And having “moving appendages.”  Well, don’t fear!  While it’s only a patent application at this point, US 20140183326 provides a stand for a halloween jack-o-lantern.

3. Halloween trick bowl 

Once you’ve got trick-or-treaters at your door, you’d better have candy to give out.  But wouldn’t it be fun to have a trick to play on the trick-or-treaters?  Of course it would.  For you, there’s US patent 7806551: a bowl (for the candy you’re giving out, of course) that lets you open a secret opening in the bowl and grab a trick-or-treater’s hand.  And it lights up, too.  Boo!

2. Halloween portable container 

Now that you’ve given all that candy away, or your kids (or you, if you’re out gathering candy) have a good haul, whoever is carrying it wants to be able to do so in an ergonomically correct way.  Because, why not?  And preferably, without working too hard.  Don’t break a sweat outrunning the zombies with plastic bags of candy.  US patent 7594669 has you covered, with a jack-0-lantern shaped candy bowl, on wheels, with a handle.

1. Life size halloween novelty item 

Your kids, and any trick-or-treaters, may enjoy this “novelty item” a bit less than some of the others on this list.  Or maybe they will love it!  Don’t be fooled by the bland name.  US patent 7878878 is for an item with a head, and an internal reservoir and valves “allowing fluid to expel intermittently out of orifices attached to a tongue” when someone approaches.  But don’t be concerned about being wasteful – the invention provides a bucket, to catch the “fluid” so it can be “expelled” again.  And again.  And again.

Bonus: Halloween greeting system

Sure, this is a Top Ten list.  But I couldn’t present this without #11 as a bonus.  US patent application 20100128588 is for a Halloween treat bag with a remote-controlled recorder and playback device.  Why, you ask?  As the application points out, children often forget to say “thank you” – and sometimes even “trick or treat!”  (As the parent of young kids, I certainly appreciate the need for this.)  One solution is for the parents to stand nearby and remind kids what to say – but now, you can use a remote control to have your voice prompt your kids, right from their trick-or-treat bag!  Brilliant.

Happy Halloween!