Post by DavidRitchieWilson on Apr 9, 2024 7:11:19 GMT -8
Certain historical diving equipment patents come with diagrams of inventions embodied in a form unlikely to leave the drawing board. I considered this to be the case when I chanced upon an early-1950s snorkel-mask design patented by Frenchman André Maille in America, Britain, France and Spain.
The drawings accompanying Maille's US2725876, GB719833, FR1039971 and ES204582 "underwater respirator mask" patents all portrayed a snorkel-mask fitted with no fewer than three breathing tubes emerging separately from an oval mask interior and then converging to enter a device designed to shut off the air supply when the user submerged.
From my perspective, this design not only bore little resemblance to any snorkel-mask I had ever come across in commercial production but also suggested a degree of unwieldy complexity worthy of the whimsy of English cartoonist William Heath Robinson.
Before setting the patent aside, I decided to read the text. The real point of the invention was to create a snorkel-mask capable of shutting off the air supply automatically, whatever the user's swimming or diving position happened to be underwater. A double check valve device offered a possible solution after single ball valves were found wanting.
Aware that the British underwater gear manufacturer E. T. Skinner (Typhoon) had patented a late-1950s two-ball-valve snorkel-mask assembly that had entered commercial production, I searched the Espacenet online European Patent database for further Maille patents. There I discovered a different underwater respirator mask patent numbered FR62973 and granted in France alone.
The patent drawings immediately put me in mind of the "Marino" snorkel-mask imported by US Divers Corporation from France 1954-1956. The resemblance between the Maille patent and the finished Marino product in the US Divers catalogue seems too close to be coincidental.
The drawings accompanying Maille's US2725876, GB719833, FR1039971 and ES204582 "underwater respirator mask" patents all portrayed a snorkel-mask fitted with no fewer than three breathing tubes emerging separately from an oval mask interior and then converging to enter a device designed to shut off the air supply when the user submerged.
From my perspective, this design not only bore little resemblance to any snorkel-mask I had ever come across in commercial production but also suggested a degree of unwieldy complexity worthy of the whimsy of English cartoonist William Heath Robinson.
Before setting the patent aside, I decided to read the text. The real point of the invention was to create a snorkel-mask capable of shutting off the air supply automatically, whatever the user's swimming or diving position happened to be underwater. A double check valve device offered a possible solution after single ball valves were found wanting.
Aware that the British underwater gear manufacturer E. T. Skinner (Typhoon) had patented a late-1950s two-ball-valve snorkel-mask assembly that had entered commercial production, I searched the Espacenet online European Patent database for further Maille patents. There I discovered a different underwater respirator mask patent numbered FR62973 and granted in France alone.
The patent drawings immediately put me in mind of the "Marino" snorkel-mask imported by US Divers Corporation from France 1954-1956. The resemblance between the Maille patent and the finished Marino product in the US Divers catalogue seems too close to be coincidental.
Now that we know who might have designed the Marino snorkel-mask, André Maille, just one question remains unanswered: who was the original manufacturer of the commercial product? The inventor's name yields few, if any, online search engine results.
The moral of the tale when researching historical patents is to look at the text as well as the drawings before drawing conclusions.
DRW
