“All this from an 1891 patent on the hinge,” Bobby marveled. “Does a patent last forever?” “That one does,” Britta said. “In 1920, Senator Guenther Ohlendorf and Congressman Gottfried Himmelfurter—affectionately known to their constituents as ‘Gunny’ and ‘Frank’—shepherded through the legislature a bill making that patent eternal and expanding it to include the piano hinge and the whisk broom.”
