The King of Pop's patent
It turns out that Michael Jackson invented more than dance moves and catchy tunes. He actually has a patent for a device that let him lean out beyond his center of gravity. The patent involved shoes that clipped into a pin in the floor, keeping the feet in place no matter how far the wearer was leaning. The result was a pretty cool look. You can see it in action here:
It's actually a slick device. The same effect could be achieved by cables, but that didn't work for live shows. As you can see in the video, Michael Jackson and his dancers did the amazing gravity-defying tilt and then simply continued with the rest of the dance, which would be impossible with cables.
The patent is pretty interesting too. Thanks to Google Patents, you can see the whole patent application here. The shoes had ankle support that helped the dancers lean out and come back in. Still, even with ankle support, it looks like a very difficult move. They make it look easy in the video.
2 comments:
That's pretty sweet. Too bad the case file hasn't been digitized; I could order it out of the archives, but I have the feeling that someone up the chain would go "WTF is a bioinformatics examiner doing with a dance apparatus case file?" and then I'd get in trouble. And it doesn't look like there'd be very much of interest in the file anyway. It looks like the case got a "first action allowance", which means that there isn't a fun paper trail of arguments between the examiner and an attorney to go read through. It's kinda like the DA dropping all charges at the arraignment hearing.
What a shame. I'd love to see more documentation. Got any friends at USPO that deal with dance apparatuses? :-)
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