Finally! A Match Between the Patent and An Old Toy

Monday, November 26, 2012
                 Cold, Clear, & Sunny
                  Block # 2 of the Day

Finally!

A Match Between the Patent and an Old Toy

     When I find something of interest such as information, I need to dig and dig,till I find what I want. And so it was with trying to match up a patent of an old toy and the old toy itself. For myself, the U.S. Patent Office is a very complicated place to move around.However, today, I was digging some more, and got a bit closer.

    When you consider just how many things are patented, then you better understand just what the Patent Office is so complex.   Every item has to be classified,and then sub-classified.  I thought  that

Carl Linneus and his Systema Naturae which came out in 1735 was complex. What Linneus did was to create a hierarchal structure that sorted out all plant (flora) and animals (Fauna). The system was based on common and diverse characteristics of everything living that allowed for every unique living entity to be classified.

     Returning to the topic of toys, the U.S. Patent Office devised a system to be able to similarly classify  all inventions (patents).  I haven't figured out how to find a specific toy, but I now understand the Patent Office website better.

Here's an example (made up on my own):

Item: Toy 

Type: Car, truck, doll, airplane

Material: Plastic, rubber, metal, cast iron, ....

Moving: Battery-operated,  electrical, mechanical wind-up

Paint: lithography, spray painted, hand painted

And the system goes on and on with a myriad of classes, subclasses, sub-sub-classes and so forth.

   Now I can better understand the reasoning behind the complex system at the U.S. Patent Office. 

You also have to understand that every unique invention  and part of an invention has to be patented. When I was teaching pro photography, I would try and show students why photographing a product had to be so carefully thought out. When the Gillette razor company first came out with their triple blade, I went to the U.S. Patent Office site, and downloaded the patent.  The download must have been 10-15 pages long!  At the time (early 1980's or earlier), the cost to produce the 

3-bladed razor was close to $ 400,000,000.00 - a huge amount of money anytime,even for that time.

And There is the Patent for a Wyandotte

by Arnold J. Decker

I can't download the images and writing in the normal manner,  

because they won't open on my computer.

On the U.S. Patent Office site, they recommended a few  suggestions to resolve the issue.

I tried one and it works.

I open all of my U.S> Patent Office downloads through my screencapture and scrolling capture program called  "SnagIt".

Every Patent has several parts to it.

One part is the diagrams, and the other is the written component.

Here is part oof the written component.

Once I finally had a recognizable toy, I could now search among my sources.

I've seen this Wyandotte car many times, so it's not so unique.

I decide to do a search on Live Auctioneers / Morphy Auctions /Wyandotte Car

I found the lot number and the date of the auction on Live Auctioneers.

I then went to Dan Morphy's website with the AUction Date and the Lot Number.

And here is the car!

This one has small lightbulbs for headlights, so it's a variation of the original patent.

At the patent office, I'm not even close to matching the patent to the toy.

Of course, there's always another day.......

Thanks for dropping by,

and 

as always,

have a great part of the day, wherever you may be.

Stacey