Clearly they must, or else this example of a saxophone-shaped bottle opener wouldn’t have been awarded Patent # US D568, 128 S.
Source: Google Patents
I did some Googling to find out approximately how much it costs to obtain a US Patent. I knew it would cost a lot, but I’m not sure I was quite prepared for the total bill.
There are a lot of sites that talk about Patent costs, so I choose The Law Office of Jerry R. Potts as the one to base the estimate on. According to Potts, you should be prepared to spend around $10,000 if you want to obtain a US Patent. Then, if you want to patent your invention in other countries, that will cost you an additional $20,000 per country. 😯
You’d have to sell a hell of a lot of bottle openers to make your Patent application worthwhile. But what about if you wanted to sell sax-shaped pasta?
Well Kraft already had that idea in 1985, when they filed a Patent application for a saxophone-shaped piece of pasta.
Source: Google Patents
Yes, Kraft was awarded a Patent for their saxophone-shaped pasta piece. That happened in 1988. Now I ask you, when was the last time you ate a piece of pasta that was shaped like a saxophone? I wonder if Kraft made money on this one?
Having spent a couple of hours looking through saxophone-related inventions that were awarded US Patents—and barely scratching the surface—I was struck by how many people have tried to make improvements to saxophones, or saxophone accessories such as reeds and neck straps. Not surprisingly, many (most?) of these inventions never caught on.
Of those that did catch on, I wonder how much the actual inventor of said improvement made on his/her invention? I wonder if it covered their legal bill?
Helen,
You would be astounded how much of a market there is for trinkets like this as promotional “swag”.
Obviously, no one makes a lot of money by directly selling these to people like you or me — although I admit it would make a nifty fob for a ring of sax case keys.
However, if you had ever been to an industry convention, you would know immediately what I am talking about when I say half the fun of being there is picking up promotional items that have the potential to become collectables. Manufacturers, distributors, OEMs, all bring truck loads of the stuff with their brands stamped on it. (Think of all the promotional pens and pencils that have passed through your hands over time.)
As a sign of the times, I have noticed recently that the guitar version of this is available for sale in the large music chain stores. One of the selling points is that it is TSA-friendly. 😉
Now that you mention it Paul, I remember coming across the patent for the guitar version.
I do have my fair share of industry promotional crap. One summer while in university, I worked in a convention centre. I still have a lot of the stuff I was given in those 4 months. Sadly, no musical conventions were held during that time, but one of the memorable ones was for vaults.
I had no idea what vaults were, until I walked around the exhibits after hours. Vaults: the cement liners they line the ground with in cemeteries, in which coffins get placed. Who would have thought that vault companies would have a convention? … And no, no promotional materials from that one I’m happy to say.