31

France

Georges Emile

Casal applied for

a patent on

February 3, 1964

for his

Pompe à

main spéciale pour

permettre le

débouchage par

contre-pression

interne des

bouteilles à

bouchage

hermétique

.

French Patent

Number

1,355,433 was

granted May 8,

March 13, 1964.

________________________

Patrick Rennie uses an external air source for his cork

ejector. He applied for his unusual patent March 3, 1982.

On September 9, 1983 he was granted French Patent No.

2,522,639 for

Déboucheur pneumatique de rècipients à petite

encolure (bouteilles) bouchés avec des bouchons de liège ou

matière similaire avec ejection automatique de bouchon après

l'extraction

.

In this invention the cork is removed by using differential

flow rates of compressed air. The spring action

automatically ejects the cork from the needle. The

invention claims that it may open bottles at a high rate

without fatigue, without handling the bottles, and without

breaking the latter.

When asked for details on his invention, Rennie said, "My

family had a business making small equipment for the wine industry including a manual

bottle cork applicator that could plug as many as 300 to 400 bottles per hour. During

the last year of my engineering school I decided to transform the machine to a

pneumatic function instead of manual function. We boosted the capability to cork over