Steve van Dulken's Patent blog

The Tooth Tunes® toothbrush

I came across something new to me the other day: the Tooth Tunes® toothbrush.

It is a toothbrush that by pressing a button plays tunes to you while you brush your teeth. The tunes go down the bristles and into the jawbone and into the inner ear, so that the music reverberates in the head.

The packaging mentioned Tiger Electronics and gave the patent number. It was applied for as long ago as 1997 and was granted protection in 2000 as the Denta-mandibular sound-transmitting system , with the applicant being Californian company Sonic Bites.

Nowhere in the patent document does it mention a toothbrush, so it would be hard to find using words, and I wondered why it took so long to reach the marketplace in England at least (I saw it in Claire's, an accessory shop).

A little looking around on the Web explained. Tiger Electronics is a subsidiary of Hasbro, the huge toy company, and the company had spent years trying to figure out how best to use the idea. Rights had to be negotiated to use the music, of course. They thought of lollipops, spoons and forks, even pens. It explains why the patent summary is rather vague and even mentions edible substances. There is an informative Wikipedia article on the product.

Andrew Filo, one of the inventors, has said that as a child he remembered humming with his ears blocked and wondered how he could hear.

The toothbrushes work for two minutes, the recommended time for brushing teeth. Full marks for health benefits. The harder you press the louder the sound -- maybe not quite so good. The main problem is the receipient of this stocking filler might not like the tune, or would get bored with it. There are quite a few variations available as a result. The ability to play one of several tunes at random would be good if the chip is capable of doing this.

Tooth Tunes® was launched in February 2007 in the USA and by November had sold three million, and had become the best selling children's toothbrush. They typically sell for ten dollars, or seven pounds in the UK.

Patently Silly book

I've been sent a copy of the new Patently Silly: the daftest inventions ever devised book by Daniel Wright. I can honestly say I found it an absolute delight.

It consists of over 200 drawings from American patents in the last decade or so, arranged in twelve themes. Each patent is given its full title, which often intrigue -- Wave Bed, anyone ?

And what about Shoe Chair, Combined Coconut-Shaped Drink Container and Subliminal Recording Device. Wright's wry comments (and a poem in at least one occasion, to accompany an invention about discouraging smoking), are well worth reading besides. Below is a sample drawing.

The UK edition is priced at £9.99 as a hardback and is published by Prion. Wright himself is based in New York City, where I grew up, as a comedian. I can see that our sense of humour runs along similar lines. Pity I heard about the book too late for this Christmas -- though as some examples are what is usually called lavatory humour you would have to be careful about whom you gave it to.

New guide to making money out of inventions

I’ve had a look at a terrific new book on commercialising inventions. The author is Rob Lucas and the title is The big and easy guide to take a bright idea from drawing board to successful revenue.

Rob has worked with the British Library by writing our three (free) online courses on intellectual property. His background is commercialisation of new products. Written in simple language, it has chapters covering the topics of setting out, confidentiality, searching to see if it’s been done before, prototypes, protecting ideas, finance, production and so on. Lots of actual examples are given in the 200 page book.

As I know from many discussions with inventors, the novice rarely appreciates what the problems are, let alone the answers. It’s not easy making money out of inventions. A huge amount of work and a lot of finance is necessary to even get a useful invention patented, let alone out into the market place. Lack of awareness of this is what most novices share, and this book sorts out those problems.

Rob’s book is available from the publisher’s website, Jembro (where extracts can be seen), or from Amazon and other retailers.

Britain's annual Innovation Report 2008

Britain's first Innovation Report was published yesterday after a launch by the Prime Minister. There is a good deal of information about it on its website. Itr is encouraging that the government is taking such an interest in fostering innovation.

There are two versions, and the one with case studies is, I suggest the most interesting -- it does include (page 193) a case study on the British Library's Business & IP Centre, which I and my colleagues in the Research Service support by providing priced research for customers.

The report contains a great deal of data, including on knowledge transfer (for example, between universities and industry) in reviewing progress towards encouraging innovation, which is not just patentable innovation. To me one of the key problems is surely the lack of technical skills at all levels, with few emerging from schools or colleges with skills in engineering and other subjects. This includes the ability to search databases for what has already been done (why reinvent the wheel ?) -- sadly, the word "searching" only appears once, in passing, in the report.