Hello John,
So far, there seems to be a unanimous consensus that a patent for a
sundial design isn't worth it, I completely agree. However, in my usual
contraryian fashion, I will say that looking over past sundial patents
has been a fascinating adventure. I have copied all US patent wrappers
as pertaining to sundials, it was a task done with many trips to a local
patent depository. Most are fairly droll, even "lame" but there are
others that are truly inventive and worthy of closer investigation and
construction. Fred Sawyer has given us a taste for this in recent
publications of the Compendium, something that I hope will continue. If
you have some time to kill (and you'll need a lot of it) then I'd
recommend a visit to a patent library. The URL below provides a list of
US patent depository libraries. You can also, of course, request copies
from the USPTO directly.
http://www.bioinfo.com/fbdpdls.html
Best,
Luke
