I’d be pleased to make Microkhan about nothing more than fantastic patent art. My current favorite is the drawing above, take from the landmark 1971 patent for the modern dye pack. The inventors, Harold Robeson and Jerry Birchfield, acknowledge in their application that they were standing on the shoulders of giants: The first dye pack, then known as the “Liquid Protecting Device,” dated back to 1932. But Robeson and Birchfield realized that existing devices needed to be activated with a physical squeeze or by hitting a radio switch with a very short range. That meant the robbers would have their money splattered while still in the bank, and might bug out and start shooting upon realizing that their booty was now worthless.
The Robeson-Birchfield dye pack, by contrast, was the first to be outfitted with a timer, so that it wouldn’t explode until the robber was presumably clear of the premises. It was also small enough to be inserted into a hollow stack of bills, which dramatically lowered the odds that a robber might be able to discover it before detonation.
My big question is whether Robeson or Birchfield ever received their deserved recompense. Biographical information about the men is slim, to say the least; my best guess is that Robeson, who appears to hold the bulk of the IP rights, shifted over to property management before he passed away in 1998. If you have any information about these two under-appreciated geniuses, I’m all ears.
Previously on Microkhan: How bank robbery became a well-managed risk.
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