The patents The Donald Duck story

(8 March 1965, page 58). Other sources describing the event are
magazines "Popular Science", April 1965 (page 118-119); "Die
BASF" vol. 15 no. 3, 1965 (page 148-156); and "Chemistry",
September 1966.
Abstract of GB1070600
The patents
1,070,600. Raising sunken vessels. K.
K. K. KROYER. Nov. 2, 1965 [Nov. 4,
1964], No. 46343/65. Heading B7S. An
apparatus for raising a sunken vessel
(1), Fig. 1 (not shown), by introducing
buoyant bodies into the interior of the
vessel comprises a water pump (6), Fig,
2 (not shown), which on the pressure
side is connected to the inlet end of an
ejector (7) having its suction pipe (8)
connected to a silo (9) containing the
buoyant bodies, the outlet end of the
ejector (7) being connected to one end
of a tube (3) the other end (10) of which
can be introduced into the interior of the
sunken vessel. An adhesive of asphalt
supplied through tube (11) is applied to
each buoyant body as it leaves nozzle
(10) to enter the sunken vessel. The
buoyant bodies may be gas-containing
polystyrene balls or pieces of cellular
plastics material.
Inventor Karl Krøyer received patents for this method in the
United Kingdom (GB 1070600) and Germany (DE1247893).
Some sources claim that it was company BASF that obtained
the patents, but the applicant's name on the patent frontpages
is actually Krøyer himself.
According to the patent claim, buoyant bodies 1 are inserted
into a sunken vessel 4 through a tube 3 from a salvage ship 2.
Description of DE1247893
Verfahren zum Heben eines
gesunkenen Schiffes Die Erfindung
betrifft ein Verfahren zum Heben eines
gesunkenen Schiffes, wonach
Schwimmkörper aus Kunststoff,
insbesondere Schaumkunststoff, mit
Hilfe eines von einer auf dem
Bergungsschiff angeordneten Pumpe
erzeugten Wasserstrahles jeweils in
einen der Schiffsräume hineingedrückt
werden, indem sie zunächst in einen
auf dem Bergungsschiff befindlichen
Behälter und von diesem aus durch
eine damit zusammenwirkende
Fördervorrichtung in den Wasserstrahl
führenden, an das zu hebende Schiff
angeschlossenen Schlauch eingebracht
werden.
A 1949 Donald Duck cartoon in which
Donald and his nephews lifted a ship
using ping pong balls, in 1964
supposedly inspired the team around
Danish inventor Karl Kroyer to lift the
freighter Al Kuwait, capsized in Kuwait
port, by pumping polystyrol pellets
(balls) into the ship.
(http://nieuwsbrief.ahoy.nl/templates/em/leesverd
er.cfm?content_id=2055&newsletter_id=328)
Figure 1 of Krøyer's patent
The story is usually told as relating to the Dutch patent (NL
6514306) Krøyer applied for. This application was not
approved. According to the story, the Dutch Patent Office found
an old issue of the Donald Duck magazine which showed the
same invention. Since an invention has to be new to be
patentable, the application was refused. This story was recently
repeated by the Dutch patent office (in Dutch), although
surprisingly this confirmation did not give any detail on which
patent office or how the Duck story came to its attention.
The Donald Duck story
In 1949 the Donald Duck story The Sunken Yacht (by Carl
Barks) shows Donald and the nephews raising a ship by filling it
with ping pong balls shoved through a tube, as can be seen
below in the images cited from that story.