The Patents of Frank B. Gilbreth
Amid all of his other accomplishments, Frank Gilbreth found time to invent and update several useful pieces of equipment and construction methods, and file patents on many of them. Between 1892 and 1912, he was granted no fewer than thirteen US patents, some of which were updates to prior filings. (He also held one assigned patent, and in 1916 was granted an additional patent on a method and apparatus for motion study.)
(Nor was he the only one of his family to do so. A design for a spoon was granted to his sister Mary E. Gilbreth in 1891, and his aunt Olivia Gilbreth Flynt was awarded at least a half-dozen patents for various improvements to women’s garments.)
The full list of Frank B. Gilbreths’ known US patents is as follows:
#479,591
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for the original Gilbreth bricklaying scaffold, which has three levels to keep the work materials at a convenient height for the bricklayer.
Applied for 13 Feb 1892
Granted 26 Jul 1892
Cited in five future patents
#539,259
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for a waterproof cellar technique, which essentially consists of building a watertight box of concrete, reinforcement and thick water-resisting layers.
Applied for 26 Nov 1894
Granted 14 May 1895
Cited in one future patent
#554,024
-
for an improved version of the Gilbreth scaffolding, with a jacking system for easier raising.
Applied 4 Jun 1894
Granted 4 Feb 1896
Cited in two future patents
#620,028
-
for the Gilbreth gravity mixer, which allows concrete, cement, mortar etc. to be mixed by dumping ingredients into a top hopper.
Applied 5 Aug 1898
Granted 21 Feb 1899
Cited in one future patent
#835,241
#838,725
-
by William Larkin Jr, assigned to Frank B. Gilbreth
for a governor for fluid pressure engines.
Applied 29 Nov 1905
Granted 18 Dec 1906
Cited in four future patents
#882,520
#885,337
#890,765
#911,971
#960,305
#1,004,411
#1,046,582
#1,047,930
There was only one patent outside of construction methods:
#1,199,980
There are references to other patents, mostly in later years, that were not approved or seen through. Chief among these may be a design for a rotary concrete mixer, which after challenges and patent delays was no longer competitive against a new generation of electrically-powered rotary mixers of the type still in use today.