The Patent Record, Person by Person

Three Walkerton-resident inventors stand in the patent record reached, each with his numbers and dates, and the record is printed man by man.

Samuel Merle Shobert, founder of the Polygon Company (1949) and its president in the banked directory record — a chemist who had worked at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base on the B-17 program in the Second World War, by the defence-industries profile. His patents, in order: U.S. 3,131,979, issued 5 May 1964, a hollow cylindrical self-lubricating bearing of polytetrafluoroethylene and cotton thread; U.S. 3,458,374, a method for making a braided tubular bearing with a PTFE liner; U.S. 3,832,255, patented 27 August 1974, "Method of Fabricating an Improved Plastic Bearing" — whose face prints the inventor's address two ways, "Samuel Merle Shobert, Walkerton, Ind. (17760 Dragoon Trail, Mishawaka, Ind. 46544)," and the two print here unmerged, as the document gives them; U.S. 3,870,589, published 11 March 1975 on a filing of 20 July 1973, "Carbon-Fluorocarbon Fiber-Plastic Composite Bearing" — a tubular PTFE-thread layer embedded in resin and enrobed by carbon-fiber strands, the composite architecture the company still sells; and U.S. 4,154,634, Shobert et al., May 1979, carried at citation-trail strength. The line continues in the published record to a next generation: application US 2003/0035602 A1 (20 February 2003), an injection-molded fabric-lined self-lubricating bearing, naming Benjamin A. Shobert of Carmel, Indiana, and Ray E. Wolff of South Bend — printed at published-record strength, as roles and filings, nothing more.

Russell E. Hartsough, of the Hartsough Manufacturing Company, Walkerton: U.S. 3,285,153, patented 15 November 1966 on a filing of 8 September 1964, seven claims — a "Building Ventilating System" for poultry houses and the like, a fan forcing air down into the living space and out through outlets so that the warm air pooled at the ceiling and roof is drawn off; the patent's face spells the inventor "Russel" once and "Russell" in the signature, and both print as found. James W. Fogle, of Walkerton: U.S. 3,604,157, patented 14 September 1971 on a filing of 10 April 1969 — a "Blast Machine with Automatic Blast Wheel Positioner," assigned to the Wheelabrator Corporation of Mishawaka: a Walkerton inventor's patent in a county industry, the abrasive-blast machinery line, held by the region's big equipment house. Three men, and the method that found them prints with the aggregate article below: the PatentsView inventor-city query did not answer (see the aggregate), and this person-by-person record was built from the patent documents themselves, read at the face.

Sources: U.S. Patents 3,131,979; 3,458,374 (as cited in U.S. 4,272,971); 3,832,255; 3,870,589; 4,154,634; 3,285,153; 3,604,157 — patent documents and citation records read November 2026; U.S. application publication US 2003/0035602 A1; Polygon defence-industries profile (founder biography); Businesses (Polygon corporate record; S. M. Shobert, president).