Pig in a poke while the English expression refers to the appearance of the trick. This taught many scammed people the phrase "Caveat Emptor", or "buyer beware" as translated from Latin. In the past, it was common for small farmers to put a pig in a cloth sack to bring it to market for sale. A "poke" is a sack or bag. It has a French origin as "poque" and, like several other French words, its diminutive is formed by adding "-ette" or "-et" — hence "pocket" began life with the meaning "small bag". "Poke" is still in use in several English-speaking places, including
Patent caveat as the proposed patent, the Patent Office notified the holder of the caveat, who then had three months to submit a formal patent application with claims. If the two patent applications claimed the same invention, an interference would then be declared and neither patent could be issued until it was determined which was the first to invent. Perhaps the most famous example of such a conflict was on 14 February 1876, when Elisha Gray filed a patent caveat and Alexander Graham Bell filed a patent application on the same day, both relating to the telephone. Gray ended up abandoning his