Trust the patent buffs to explore novelty in places where others are unlikely to see it. One can also count on them to tide over the obvious to put it to use on a wide scale. Kevin Prince, a patent agent and author, has come up with the wonderful idea to have playing cards with patent illustrations in them.
As Kevin has noted here, although the patent drawings/illustrations form an integral part of the patent applications, the artists who come up with the illustrations are not given any recognition. This despite the fact that for patent illustrations, which date back prior to the age of electronic illustrations, the artist had to portray each and every one of the intricacies of the proposed patent by hand.
As a tribute to these remarkable works, Kevin had earlier come out with a coffee table book titled ‘The Art of the Patent’ containing many such stand out patent illustrations. He has now gone one step ahead and is releasing playing cards containing these illustrations. The playing cards are being released in 4 different set of decks- a blue deck containing illustrations from his book, red deck having some of the most famous patents to have emerged out of the United States, green deck containing patents related to amusement parks and purple deck containing illustrations vis a vis patents related to vehicles. Each playing card will have, apart from the illustration, the name and date of the patent, the patent number, the name of the inventor as well as the patent title.
The production of these cards was funded through a ‘kickstarter’ campaign (which is now closed). All the details about the project can be found here.
Image from here
