Halloween Patents that are Nightmare Fuel

With Halloween just around the corner, the spooky season is in full swing. Here are a few of our favorite scary patents if you are still looking for costume ideas.

Given their nature as technical representations of an invention, patent drawings are sometimes a lot scarier than what they are intended to look like. For example, US 2,771,708 is a Ventriloquist’s Doll that reminds us of the famous R.L. Stine’s Goosebumps™ book “Night of the Living Dummy”. 

Figure 1 Ventriloquist's Doll

There are some Halloween patents that are scary-looking and used for entertainment, such as US 7,878,878, a life size novelty item consisting of a motion-sensor ghoul expelling liquids out of its mouth.  

Figure 2 Life Size Halloween Novelty Item

Finally, there are certain scary patents whose only intention is to scare you, and not in the fun way. Such is the case of US 1,749,090, an “Apparatus for obtaining criminal confessions and photographically recording them.” The system consisted of a skeleton that would scare the confessions out of potential criminals. The inventor believed that criminals would not dare to lie to the subject of their nightmares, and that the authorities would conveniently record the confessions for later presenting to a jury. 

Figure 3 Apparatus for obtaining criminal confessions and photographically recording them