A post from student blogger Nicole

Recently in our patent prosecution class we read a Disney patent for one of their water slides.  You might be thinking to yourself, what can be patented about a water slide?  At least that’s what came to my mind when our teacher asked us.  Well I’ll help you out. They developed a system at the bottom of the slide to help you comfortably slow down.  The system uses air injection nozzles to lower the density of the water, which helps you slow down more gently as you approach the end.  Otherwise your butt might be bruised the next day if you went down a water slide more than 80 feet tall and smacked into the water at the bottom.  If it wasn’t for this then there wouldn’t be Summit Plummet at Disney’s Blizzard Beach.  New technology helps create new possibilities.

The most exciting part about being a patent agent is going to be seeing all the new technology.  It’ll be intriguing to see what brilliant ideas are being thought of next.  Could you imagine if the company you were working for was brought an idea like an airplane?  And you were the one that was chosen to write the patent for it?  That is something to be proud of.  How could you not want to become a patent agent?  You get a jump start on the new things evolving in this world.  The airplane was patented in 1906 and it was called a flying machine.  It’s funny to think of an airplane being called a flying machine, but back then it was historic and made a difference in the world today.  Nobody knows what’s coming next, but as a patent agent we’ll be one step ahead.

It is interesting to see how much patents have changed.  If you get the chance to look at patents, look at the airplane patent (821,393) from 1906 and an airplane patent (8,746,616) from 2014.  The world is evolving in many ways and these airplane patents are perfect evidence of it.