Every work day I pick up a copy of the free Metro newspaper at my local tube station. Today (page 8) there was an intriguing article: "'Dangerous' bandit is out of arm's way".
It was about a Japanese arm-wrestling machine that had broken the arms of three people who had a go at wrestling it. Apparently the Arm Spirit, available through Atlus, is only available in Japan. I had never heard of the idea, and thought I'd have a look for it.
It's not on the Esp@cenet database, at least under their name, but I did identify some patents for similar machines. There were 17 hits when I simply asked for "arm wrestling" together with machine. There is even an "ECLA" (or EC) classification for the idea: A63B23/12W, which can be used on the site to find 50 patent specifications for the concept. These include a British patent for "Arm-wrestling apparatus". Searching by using classification or keywords is full of problems for the unwary, and rather than experimenting it is best to use the Get Assistance tutorial at that site, or to attend a free patent searching workshop here in London run by the British Library.
On a smaller scale, there is an intriguing thumb wrestling patent where the thumbs fight it out in a miniature boxing ring.
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