Intellectual Property » A Hundred Years Of Jewish Ritual Patents

A Hundred Years Of Jewish Ritual Patents

July 16, 2015

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Patent applications for devices or processes relating to Jewish ritual practices go back more than a hundred years. Writer David Zvi Kalman, in documenting them, found that the first wave, starting early in the last century, were broadly speaking “industrial” and included things like methods for printing in Hebrew and “an electric device for plucking chicken feathers.” Later on there was more of a consumer orientation, with such items as star-of-David necklaces and a kit for building a sukkah. From the 1970s on, many patents related to the Orthodox market, and they included several that exploit certain practice loopholes, like a Shabbat-friendly elevator and a clever device to turn lights off and on without violating the prohibition on “work.” It wasn’t easy research, Kalman says, because unlike Christian ritual items, these items aren’t identified as a category by the patent office, simply because comparatively speaking there aren’t many of them. Times change. A few decades ago, Muslim items also began showing up, including one in what the writer gingerly places in the “kitsch” sub-category: a prayer rug with a built-in compass, so you can point it to Mecca.

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