Petent Pending™: Chromatically Selective Cat Flap Control
Welcome to Petent PendingTM, Russell IP’s new series of pet-related patent posts! 🐾 Each post will feature a patent application or granted patent relating to technology for or involving pets 🐕🐈. From time to time, we’ll also try to coax a furry Russell IP representative into making an appearance and offering their take on the featured pet tech!
Introducing Arthur Paul Pedrick and his cat flap
We start the series with a quirky classic of the pet-related patents genre: Arthur Pedrick’s intriguing (and snappily titled) “Photon Push-Pull Radiation Detector For Use In Chromatically Selective Cat Flap Control And 1000 Megaton Earth-Orbital Peace-Keeping Bomb”.
Mr Pedrick was a serial filer of patent applications. On page 3, lines 74-84 of his patent application GB1426698 Mr Pedrick sets out the very serious problem this particular invention seeks to solve:
“There is … a Ginger Cat, who, with increasing years, is not as agile as he was, and quite often when coming in at nights from a bit of mouse hunting, is, when the kitchen door is open, over taken on the way to his cat food, by the black cat from next door, who is much younger and more agile. The problem therefore is how to let “Ginger” in, but exclude the black cat who belongs next door.”
🙀 Mr Pedrick’s harecatbrained solution is a “chromatic cat flap control unit” which directs strong beams of light onto the cat in question and raises a cat flap plate only if the correct amount of light is reflected from the cat’s fur, as governed by the colour of the fur:
Mr Pedrick asserts that “In this way, considerable feline rivalry may be avoided”. Russell IP pet Frida Katlo is sceptical, though. She’s not convinced that Mr Pedrick’s cat flap can handle her majestically multitonal ginger and black stripes!
If you have any questions about pet-related IP, please feel free to get in touch with your usual Russell IP contact, email [email protected], or use our contact form by clicking the button below.
