Jack-o'-lanterns of the IP World: The David Kapp-o'-lantern

We all love carving pumpkins, but don’t you get bored of carving the same old grin into every single Jack-o’-lantern you’ve ever created?  Do you want to carve a pumpkin that is relavent to your career?  Then maybe you should try making a David Kapp-o’-lantern!  David Kappos is the Director of the United States Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), and if you work in the intellectual property field, you’ve probably heard his name.  Mr. Kappos has helmed the USPTO during the historic passage of the America Invents Act, and he was also a participant in the Supreme Court case of Bilski v. Kappos.  Mr. Kappos is an integral figure in the intellectual property field of the 21st century, so what better way to honor him than giving him his own Jack-o’-lantern?

Continue reading to learn how to make your very own David Kapp-o’-lantern, so you can celebrate an IP-themed Halloween!

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Gathering the Materials: Pumpkin Carving Patents

First, we need to find the most cutting-edge pumpkin-carving technology.  I went to Google Patent to search for “pumpkins” and limited the results to granted US patents.  Here are the latest pumpkin-carving gadgets that you should stock up on before attempting to carve the Kapp-o’-lantern:

• 6655032 – Pumpkin cutting apparatus
• D600512 – Pumpkin scraper
• 4689885 – Apparatus for cutting out a face in a pumpkin
• 5491007 – Carvable artificial pumpkin and method 
• 5918964 – Pumpkin illumination device
• 6722042 – Pumpkin decorative surface carving tool
• 6342175 – Method of carving shapes in a pumpkin shell

Creating the Kapp-o’-lantern

Now that we have our high-tech carving tools, we need the raw materials:

1. A print-out of your favorite picture of David Kappos (in this case, the picture from his official biography on the USPTO website).
2. A large pumpkin.

First, you need to cut out the David Kappos picture and tape it to the side of the pumpkin.

Step 1: Tape a picture of David Kappos to the side of a pumpkin.

Next, you can use a cooking skewer to punch holes along the main lines of the picture, creating an outline of the face in the pumpkin.

Use a skewer to create an outline of the face.

Finally, use the high-tech gadgets that you’ve acquired to cut, scrape, and carve the pumpkin, using the outline as a guide.  Put in your pumpkin illumination device, and you now have your own David Kapp-o’-lantern!

Use the outline to carve a David Kapp-'o-lantern!

Do you have any ideas for IP-themed Jack-o’-lanterns?  Let us know in the comments section, and have a happy Halloween!

This post was contributed by Joelle Mornini. The Intellogist blog is provided for free by Intellogist’s parent company Landon IP, a major provider of patent searches, trademark searches, technical translations, and information retrieval services.

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