U.S. patent application number 10/832887 was filed with the patent office on 2005-01-06 for elastic sound-making toy with rotatable appendages.
Invention is credited to Ritter, Janice, Strom, Lisa, Takeyasu, Alton.
Application Number | 20050003733 10/832887 |
Document ID | / |
Family ID | 33555226 |
Filed Date | 2005-01-06 |
United States Patent
Application |
20050003733 |
Kind Code |
A1 |
Ritter, Janice ; et
al. |
January 6, 2005 |
Elastic sound-making toy with rotatable appendages
Abstract
Motion responsive toys having deformable body segments. The toy
includes a first body segment constructed from elastically
deformable materials and a second body segment operatively coupled
to the first body segment. In some embodiments, movable appendages
are mounted to the body segments, with one appendage adapted to
drive the motion of the other.
Inventors: |
Ritter, Janice; (Los
Angeles, CA) ; Strom, Lisa; (Redondo Beach, CA)
; Takeyasu, Alton; (Playa Del Rey, CA) |
Correspondence
Address: |
KOLISCH HARTWELL, P.C.
520 S.W. YAMHILL STREET
SUITE 200
PORTLAND
OR
97204
US
|
Family ID: |
33555226 |
Appl. No.: |
10/832887 |
Filed: |
April 26, 2004 |
Related U.S. Patent Documents
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Application
Number |
Filing Date |
Patent Number |
|
|
60467293 |
May 1, 2003 |
|
|
|
Current U.S.
Class: |
446/298 |
Current CPC
Class: |
A63H 3/28 20130101; A63H
13/005 20130101; A63H 3/40 20130101; A63H 3/04 20130101; A63H 3/20
20130101 |
Class at
Publication: |
446/298 |
International
Class: |
A63H 003/28; A63H
003/12 |
Claims
We claim:
1. A deformable toy comprising: a first body segment constructed
from an elastically deformable material; and a second body segment
operatively coupled to the first body segment, wherein a movable
first appendage is mounted to one of the first and second body
segments and a movable second appendage is mounted to the other of
the first and second body segments, the first appendage adapted to
be placed in a user-defined position and drive movement of the
second appendage when the user-defined position of the first
appendage is altered, wherein movement of the second appendage
alternately conceals and reveals a portion of the first body
segment or the second body segment.
2. The toy of claim 1, wherein the first appendage and second
appendage are adapted to counter-rotate with respect to one
another.
3. The toy of claim 1, further including a movable third appendage
mounted to the first body segment, wherein movement of the third
appendage is driven by deformation of the first body segment.
4. The toy of claim 1, wherein the first appendage represents an
arm and is mounted to the first body segment, and the second
appendage represents an item of clothing and is mounted to the
second body segment.
5. The toy of claim 1, wherein the first body segment represents a
sea sponge.
6. The toy of claim 1, further including a speech assembly adapted
to emit sound upon activation of a sensor, wherein the sensor is
adapted to sense deformation of the first body segment.
7. A toy figure that is transformable between first and second
configurations, the toy figure comprising: a body segment made of a
resiliently deformable material; a plurality of appendages coupled
to the body segment and adapted to move from a first configuration
to a second configuration by extending away from the body segment
in response to deformation of the body segment, wherein at least a
portion of the appendage remains extended from the body segment
after the body segment has returned to its undeformed state; a
sensor adapted to sense deformation of the body segment; and a
sound generator operatively coupled to the sensor and thereby
adapted to emit sound upon deformation of the body segment.
8. The toy figure of claim 7, wherein the appendage configured to
extend away from the body segment represents eyes.
9. The toy figure of claim 7, wherein the plurality of appendages
includes a first appendage adapted to be placed in a user-defined
position and drive movement of a second appendage when the
user-defined position of the first appendage is altered.
10. The toy of claim 9, wherein movement of the second appendage
alternately conceals and reveals a portion of the body segment.
11. The toy of claim 9, wherein the first appendage represents an
arm and the second appendage represents an item of clothing.
12. The toy of claim 9, wherein the first appendage and the second
appendage counter-rotate with respect to one another.
13. A deformable toy comprising: an elastically deformable upper
body; a rigid lower body; and a clothing region mounted to the
lower body, wherein the clothing region is adapted to move relative
to the lower body and thereby alternately conceal and reveal a
portion of the lower body.
14. The toy of claim 13, further including at least one arm
operatively coupled to the clothing region and adapted to be placed
in a user-defined position.
15. The toy of claim 14, wherein the at least one arm drives
movement of the clothing region.
16. The toy of claim 15, wherein the at least one arm and the
clothing region counter-rotate with respect to one another.
17. The toy of claim 13, further including at least one eye mounted
within the upper body and adapted to extend from the upper body
upon deformation of the upper body.
18. The toy of claim 13, further including a tongue mounted within
the upper body and adapted to extend from the upper body upon
deformation of the upper body.
19. The toy of claim 13, further including a speech assembly
adapted to periodically emit sound.
20. The toy of claim 13, further including a speech assembly
adapted to emit sound upon movement of at least one of the clothing
region, the at least one arm, the at least one eye, and the tongue.
Description
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION
[0001] This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. 119 (e) to
U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/467,293 entitled
"Elastic Sound-Making Toy With Rotatable Appendages," filed May 1,
2003, the disclosure of which is herein incorporated by
reference.
BACKGROUND
[0002] Motion-responsive, sound-producing toys may include sounds
designed to attract a child, sensors for audio responses, and
extensible or moving appendages. Various types of sensors may be
used to produce an audio response, such as those discussed in U.S.
Pat. Nos. 6,210,278, 6,193,580, 6,159,101, 6,149,490, 6,086,478,
5,029,214, 5,011,449, 4,766,275, 4,751,353, 4,740,186 and
4,318,245, the disclosures of which are incorporated herein by
reference. These toys may further be constructed to allow for
squeezing or stretching the toy, such as discussed in U.S. Pat.
Nos. 6,360,615, 6,053,797, and 4,169,336, the disclosures of which
are incorporated herein by reference.
SUMMARY
[0003] The present disclosure relates to deformable toys such as
those that may be stretched or squeezed. In some embodiments,
interaction with the toy activates internal electronics that
provide custom audio responses to each possible form of play.
Additionally, the toy may include movable limbs that are coupled
with one another to provide a greater range of play options.
BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS
[0004] FIG. 1 is an isometric view of an illustrative example of
the external components of a toy, according to the present
disclosure, including a body having an upper body segment and a
lower body segment with several appendages, such as eyes, a nose, a
tongue, clothing, arms, and legs.
[0005] FIG. 2 is an isometric view of the toy of FIG. 1 showing
movement of an appendage in response to a stimulus, such as
movement of the clothing in response to raising of an arm.
[0006] FIG. 3 is a isometric view of the toy of FIG. 1 showing
movement of facial features, such as the eyes and tongue in
response to deformation of the upper body segment.
[0007] FIG. 4 depicts stretching of the upper body segment, the
nose, and the arms of the toy of FIG. 1.
[0008] FIG. 5 is a flow chart of various play modes and events that
the toy may possess.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION
[0009] As depicted in FIG. 1, toy 10 includes a body 12 that is
subdivided into a plurality of body segments including a first, or
an upper body segment, 14 and a second, or a lower body segment,
16. Upper body segment 14 may be constructed from an elastically
deformable material including soft roto-cast materials, such as
urethane or polyvinylchloride, thus upper body segment 14 may be
resiliently deformable. Lower body segment 16 may be injection
molded and substantially more rigid. The lower body segment may
therefore house and protect internal components and electronics as
will later be described. It should be appreciated that these
materials may be reversed such that the upper body segment is rigid
while the lower body segment is resiliently deformable. The first
and second body segments may be operatively coupled to one another.
Alternatively, a rigid compartment may be contained within one of
the body segments, both of which may be deformable.
[0010] As shown in FIGS. 1-3, upper body segment 14 is in the form
of a sea sponge that represents a character from the SpongeBob.TM.
Cartoon on Nickelodeon. However, numerous other embodiments may be
used in place of a sponge without substantially changing the
functionality of the toy or otherwise departing from the scope of
the disclosure.
[0011] As shown in FIG. 1, a plurality of appendages 18 are coupled
to one or both of the upper and lower body segments. Some
embodiments may include a movable first appendage 20, such as arms,
22 and hands 24. This first appendage may be pivotable relative to
a body segment, such as upper body segment 14, and configured to be
selectively placed in a user-defined position. Although the
illustrative example shows first appendage 20 mounted to upper body
segment 14, it should be appreciated that first appendage 20 may be
mounted to any body segment without departing from the scope of the
disclosure.
[0012] A movable second appendage 26, such as clothing 28, is also
included in the embodiment shown in FIG. 1. Movement of second
appendage 26 is triggered by movement of first appendage 20. In
some embodiments, first appendage 20 is adapted to move second
appendage 26 in tandem with the first appendage. Thus, first
appendage 20 may drive movement of second appendage 26 when the
user-defined position of the first appendage is altered. In some
embodiments, movement of the second appendage alternately conceals
and reveals a portion of one or more of the body segments. For
example, the arms may be adapted to cause at least a portion of
clothing 28, such as the front of the shirt and pants, to move
downward when either of arms 22 is rotated, as shown in FIG. 2.
This downward movement may be accomplished by a translation of the
clothing segment away from lower body 16 or a counter-rotation of
the clothing segment relative to the arm.
[0013] Toy 10 may further include a movable third appendage 30,
such as eyes 32, mounted to upper body segment 14 with movement of
the third appendage being driven by deformation of first body
segment 14. Upper body 14 may house a mechanism that actuates the
eyes to extend from the upper body when upper body 14 is squeezed
or otherwise deformed, as shown in FIG. 3. This mechanism may be an
air-bladder that pushes the eyes out of, or away from, upper body
segment 14. Alternatively, or additionally, the mechanism may be
spring-loaded. In such a configuration, the appendage may not
return to its first configuration until acted upon by an external
force sufficient to compress the spring. The mechanism may take the
form of a latch that secures the appendage in its unreleased
configuration until it is released by subsequent deformation of the
body segment.
[0014] Toy 10 may possess additional body segments and/or
appendages that may be moveable or resiliently deformable
including, but not limited to, facial features such as a nose 34, a
mouth 36, and a tongue 38. In some embodiments, the lower body
segment further includes legs 40 and feet 42. The legs and feet may
be rigid and of the same material as the lower body segment to
provide a base of support for the toy to stand upon, or they may be
resiliently deformable.
[0015] In the illustrative example shown in FIG. 3, tongue 38 is
also capable of extending from the upper body segment when the
upper body segment is squeezed and may therefore be considered a
movable third appendage 30, much like eyes 32. This may be
accomplished using a mechanism that is the same or different from
that used to move eyes 32. In other embodiments, tongue 38 may be
considered a second appendage 26 that moves when first appendage 20
is moved by a user.
[0016] Moving on to FIG. 4, the pliancy of the resiliently
deformable body segments and/or members allows the toy to be
stretched, squeezed, and/or twisted as desired by a user while
returning to an original configuration when released. As shown in
FIG. 4, a user may pull, and thereby stretch, upper body segment
14, arm 22, and nose 34. That depicted is intended as an example
only and it should be appreciated that any portion of toy 10 may be
made of a resiliently deformable material.
[0017] Additionally, toy 10, such as in upper body segment 14, may
house a speech assembly that triggers generation of sounds
associated with the movement of any of the appendages. The lower
body is typically used to house these internal components, which
may include an on/off switch, a printed circuit board, one or more
speakers, one or more batteries, a shake sensor, such as a cage
switch, and a sound generator chip.
[0018] Various modes and events of play are depicted in FIG. 5.
Once powered on, toy 10 may use attracting speech mode to
automatically produce sounds and phrases to attract a child to play
with it. Thus, this attracting speech does not require any input
from the child once the toy has been turned on. During play,
shaking toy 10 or squeezing it supper body segment to make the eyes
pop out may activate the toy. Movement of the eyes may also
activate a series of eye popping sounds and phrases. Shaking the
toy may cause the toy to emit a series of shaking sounds and
phrases.
[0019] As shown in FIG. 5A, once the toy is powered on at 100, an
attracting speech counter is reset at 102 and an attracting speech
sound file is accessed at 104. If the switch or shake sensor is
activated at 106, such as by squeezing the upper body of the toy to
actuate the eyes at 108, then an eye squeeze sound file is played
at 110. If the played sound file is the last one in the sequence at
112 then a counter is reset at 114, otherwise the counter is
incremented at 116. Thus, if a switch is activated at 118, then an
appropriate switch sequence is accessed at 120, otherwise the toy
enters a sleep mode at 122. If the sensor determines that a toy is
being shaken at 124, then a shaking file is accessed at 126. Again,
if the played sound file is the last in the sequence at 128, then a
counter is reset at 130, otherwise the counter is incremented at
132.
[0020] In some embodiments, as shown in FIG. 5B, if the sensor has
not been activated, the toy may enter an attracting speech mode at
134. A counter is incremented at 136 to access a particular
attracting speech sound file at 138. After a slight delay at 140,
such as two seconds, the toy evaluates whether the sound file
played was the last in the sequence at 142. If the sound file was
the last, then the counter is reset at 144, otherwise the counter
is incremented at 146. The toy may enter another sleep mode once
the counter has been reset at 148. After another delay at 150, the
toy may "awaken" and emit a first phrase at 152 or a second phrase
at 154 in an attempt to attract a child to play with it. After
another delay at 156, the toy may check its sensor to determine if
any parts of the toy have been activated at 158. If yes, the toy
enters its switch sequence loops at 160, as shown in FIG. 5A. If
the sensor has not been activated then the toy determines if there
is another available sound file at 162. If there is another
available sound file, the toy will play either the first sound file
at 164, or the second sound file at 166, before powering itself
down.
[0021] It is believed that the disclosure set forth above
encompasses multiple distinct inventions with independent utility.
While each of these inventions has been disclosed in its preferred
form, the specific embodiments thereof as disclosed and illustrated
herein are not to be considered in a limiting sense as numerous
variations are possible. The subject matter of the inventions
includes all novel and non-obvious combinations and subcombinations
of the various elements, features, functions and/or properties
disclosed herein. Similarly, where any claim recites "a" or "a
first" element or the equivalent thereof, such claim should be
understood to include incorporation of one or more such elements,
neither requiring nor excluding two or more such elements.
[0022] Inventions embodied in various combinations and
subcombinations of features, functions, elements, and/or properties
may be claimed through presentation of new claims in a related
application. Such new claims, whether they are directed to a
different invention or directed to the same invention, whether
different, broader, narrower or equal in scope to the original
claims, are also regarded as included within the subject matter of
the inventions of the present disclosure.
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