Reporting in from the U.S. Northeast, we’re getting a big pile of snow dumped on us right now. To put off clearing the driveway, I thought I’d look into snowman patents. Take a guess, how many snowman patents do you think there are?
Oh boy, there are a whole lot.
A lot of them are just tools to help you make a snowman, which seem like they’d actually make the process harder and more complicated. This one, though, makes the man a bit more anthropomorphic than is really necessary: https://patents.google.com/patent/US8753161B1
Sir, have you ever…
actually seen a snowman?
The invention comes in two parts. The lower part is a large bowl with sturdy stump legs attached to provide a freestanding base. You put a big sphere of snow (108) in the bowl (106) to form the body. Then you put the “torso cap” (112) with the arms (110) on top of the bowl. Then you put another snow sphere (114) on top of that to hold it all together.
A cutaway view of the stump leg.
Here are some more details. The leg has a cavity (324) in the middle, which you pack with snow to provide added weight and stability. The foot has no sole, to allow drainage of the man’s melted snowflesh. Then there are the arms:
Maybe I’m alone in finding this snowguy a little unsettling. Maybe it would be totally normal to have a crew of armed and legged snowpeople on your lawn, just standing around, waiting for the sun to undo them. But I don’t think this was ever a commercial success, so I guess we’ll never know!
Patenting the odd, the impossible, and the unnerving 