Post #198372 by pappythesailor on Wed, Nov 16, 2005 7:05 AM

One of my big questions about tiki mugs has always been copyright-related. How is it we can see the same designs appear not only for different restaurants but from different companies? I figured the most obvious answer is because no one cared; there were no design patents.(?) Maybe. So I've been spending some time at the (on-line) U.S. Patent Office. Surely, this is one of the best uses of my tax dollars I've found so far.

So I started poking around. It's pretty time consuming because all patents given before 1975 aren't searchable by title and the categories are very open to interpretation. But all you need is a mouse, one working finger and nothing to do.

After two zillion mouse clicks, I found very few patents but those I did find were only for a few years. Maybe the simple reason all these mug designs reappeared and continue to appear from places like Dynasty Wholesale is because they're in the public domain. I don't know too much about patent law (nothing, really) and even less about Japanese patent law so I dunno if this means anything.

Anyway, I did find some cool patents. Who designed the first skull mug? 50 bonus points if you guess the year.

Click HERE for the answer.

If there's any interest in this, I'll post more.

"I can't die until the government finds a safe place to bury my liver."
Phil Harris

[ Edited by: pappythesailor 2005-11-16 07:06 ]