Patented Tools

Patent documents are an important resource for understanding the development of tools, and Alloy Artifacts maintains an extensive list of tool-related patents in our Table of Selected Tool Patents. Our main table of patents presents only information for the patent itself, without regard for whether the patented item was actually produced. However, since example tools are available for a number of the patents, we have gathered these into the separate table shown below.

This table is generated automatically whenever the web site is updated, so the entries will reflect the latest available information.

External Links to Patent Entries

One of our reasons for presenting this separate table of patented tools was to provide a set of anchor points suitable for external links. Some individuals or organizations have inquired about linking to photographs of patented tools on the Alloy Artifacts website, and we're glad to have links to items of interest to others. However, due to the ongoing maintenance and development of the web pages here, we cannot guarantee that the URL address of an item will remain constant. By gathering all of the patented tools into the table here, we can provide a constant URL address for each patent, and when our web pages are rebuilt, the internal links in the table will be updated as needed.

To add a link to a patent here, use the Alloy Artifacts URL address with patented-tools.html#patent-number appended, where patent-number is the specific patent of interest. Patent numbers should not include embedded commas or leading zeroes, and design or re-issue patents should have a leading D or RE, respectively. For example, the link http://home.comcast.net/~alloy-artifacts/patented-tools.html#1424069 will jump to the entry for the well-known Blackmar double-hex box wrench patent.

Notes on Table Entries

The Patent column contains a link to Google's patent page for each patent, as this provides a very useful summary of patent documents, and allows viewing the illustrations from a web page.

The Examples by Maker column contains a link to an Alloy Artifacts web page entry for a tool covered by a particular patent. In some cases there will be multiple examples for a patent, possibly by different makers if the patent was widely licensed.

Table of Patented Tools

References and Resources

The information in the patent table was obtained from patent documents maintained by the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office (USPTO), with editorial additions based on known uses of the patents.