Site News  |   Monitor Keywords  |   Monitor Archive  |   Organizer  |   Account Info  |

Combination rotational novelty and candy

Combination rotational novelty and candy description/claims

1. Field of the Invention

A manual energy storage drives gears on shafts for rotating or moving a confection and novelty.

2. Description of Related Art

The art has many examples of novelty devices including rotating or spinning confections. Examples of these included your applicant's own patents, U.S. Pat. No. 5,209,692, issued May 11, 1993, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,690,535, issued Nov. 25, 1997, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,095,885, issued Aug. 1, 2000. All of these patents incorporate battery power as the source of power.

The prior art also has many examples of novelty devices that use windup springs as a power source. These springs can be wound by hand turning a shaft directly or by pulling on a string wound around a shaft to turn the shaft. U.S. Pat. No. 6,123,598 issued Sep. 26, 2000, to R. Cook, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,310,375, issued May 10, 1994, to S. Kanauchi, are examples of an animated character having a spring wound up by use of a pull string. Both spring motion per se, U.S. Pat. No. 5,176,223, issued Jan. 5, 1993, to S. Ito, and U.S. Pat. No. 6,746,302, issued Jun. 8, 2004, to R. Morikawa; and in combination with objects to give repetitive motions to them, U.S. Pat. No. 5,011,448, issued Apr. 30, 1991, to K. Asano, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,277,646, issued Jan. 11, 1994, to F. Fekete et al are known.

The novelty consists of a combination of shafts and gears that can rotate to provide motion for one, two, or three objects attached to the upper ends of the shafts. A manual energy storage such as a flat or spiral spring is provided to rotate the shaft and gears. It is shown wound by a knob under control of a pawl and ratchet mechanism that includes a push button control. To prevent runaway speed, a speed control unit is included with the shafts and gearing. To accommodate different seasons and events, different caps cooperate with main gear housing and shafts to vary the overall appearance and operation of the novelty.

FIG. 1 is a side view of the device combination.

FIG. 2 is an enlarged detailed side view of the operating components of the device drive.

FIG. 3 is a top view of the speed control device.

FIG. 4 is an enlarged showing of the plate gear interaction of the speed control device.

FIG. 5 is a top view of the pawl and ratchet control device.

FIG. 6 is a side view of a first cap for placement on the top of the drive of FIG. 2.

FIG. 7 is a side view of a second cap for placement on the top of the drive of FIG. 2.

FIG. 8 is a side view of a third cap for placement on the top of the drive of FIG. 2.

FIG. 9 is a partial side view of the combination of FIG. 1 showing the spring wound by use of a pull string.

• Provisional Patent
• Utility Patent

• What Is a Patent?
• What Is a Trademark or Servicemark?
• What Is a Copyright?
• Patent Laws