submarine patent
n.— «A man fought with the Patent Office for 15 years while lots of different laser products were being developed. Eventually, makers of laser products were forced to pay him. “We call those “submarine patents,” Nickey said. “When he came to the surface, he made a lot of money.”» —“OSU Could Lose Out In World Of Patents” by James W. Crowley Dispatch (Columbus, Ohio) Dec. 12, 1993. (source: Double-Tongued Dictionary)
Further reading
Matt from Grand Rapids, Michigan, was puzzled when colleagues kept saying someone had stood up at a wedding, indicating that they’d been a member of the wedding party. The expression stood up in that sense is an Americanism going back about two...
According to the Oxford English Dictionary, a word-pecker is “a person who trifles or plays with, or quibbles over, words.” This is part of a complete episode. Transcript of “Word-Peckers” I always love it when I’m looking through the dictionary and...