Intellectual Property Law

How Inventive! (No. 15)

By Dan

Horses run, right?  That means they move in three dimensions.  In 1891, William Cronin and Cyril Adams of Philadelphia patented an improved merry-go-round that incorporates this three-dimensional movement into a classical children's play apparatus.  U.S. Patent 445,134 claims a merry-go-round in "which the animals, in addition to their movement of rotation about the axis of the machine, will be given a movement perpendicular to the floor of the machine. … The animals carried by platform A have not only a movement around this platform, but are also given a vertical movement, so as to have the appearance of running."

Figure 1 from U.S. Patent 445,134:

Figure 2 from U.S. Patent 445,134:

Full post as published by Dan Fingerman on May 10, 2009 (boomark / email).