Toy building set

Details Toy building set Toy building set

1999-10-28

2001-09-04

Rimell, Sam (Department: 2166)

Amusement devices: toys

Building, tower, bridge or habitation

C446S118000, C434S072000

Reexamination Certificate

active

06283818

ABSTRACT:

The present invention concerns a toy building set comprising walls having at least one door opening which extends from the lower edge of the walls and upwards in the position of use of the walls at a height and in a width corresponding to a door, said toy building set additionally comprising at least one door element and onewindow element.
Toy building sets used for the construction of toy buildings, such as doll's houses, are known today in numerous embodiments, all of which provide the possibility of flexibly constructing many different buildings in contrast to the traditional well-known, non-flexibly built doll's houses.
Thus, e.g. GB-A-2 042 017 and U.S. Pat. No. 2,559,261 disclose a building set including loose building elements comprising separate windows, door and wall elements of different sizes. These separate elements may be combined in many different ways with respect to the construction of different types of buildings. However, a drawback of this type of building set is that it takes relatively many elements to construct a given facade. This means that the building set does not lend itself particularly well to children who are primarily interested in playing with the finished building, rather than building it.
DE Auslegeschrift No. 1 013 553, e.g., discloses a building set which to a higher degree allows rapid building of various building facade structures, as this building set comprises facade elements in which doors and windows are integrated in the elements. As the outer dimensions of the facade elements are the same, various positions of these in a building facade structure may be freely selected.
A recurring problem in the development of such toy building systems is to provide systems which on one hand enables flexible building of facade structures, and on the other hand do not necessitate the use of many subcomponents. Accordingly, the object of the present invention is to provide a toy building set of the type mentioned in the opening paragraph, which makes it possible to build many different building facade structures, without this necessitating the use of many individual elements for the building of a given facade structure. This makes the toy building set highly suitable for children who primarily want to play with the finished toy building or the finished doll's house, it being still important to the child that different building facades may be built.
This is achieved by a toy building set as defined in claim
1
. The toy building set comprises a door frame having a height and a width which correspond to the door opening, said door frame having coupling means for releasable, fixed mounting of the door frame in the door opening by complementary coupling means located at the wall opening, said door element having hinge parts for releasable mounting in complementary hinge parts in the door opening or the door frame, said toy building set additionally comprising at least one window frame differing in design from, but having a width and a height corresponding to the width and the height of the door frame, said window frame having coupling means for releasable, fixed mounting in the door opening. This provides great freedom with respect to the location of windows in the facade structure, allowing it to be freely decided with respect to the door opening whether it is to be used for the mounting of a window or a door. Additionally, it is ensured that different door frames may be used together with a given door element.
The invention may be used to advantage even in connection with traditional doll's houses having a fixed partitioning and fixed walls, because it allows building of different facades, even though the basic structure per se is inflexible. However, the invention is preferably used in connection with building sets which permit building of various basic structures, as the walls in the toy building set may be interconnected differently.
The window frame may advantageously be formed by the window element and a termination element, said window element in the position of use having a height which is smaller than the height of the door opening, said termination element being constructed so as to be mountable in the door opening at the side of the window element, said termination element and window element together forming the window frame and covering the door opening. Different window elements and termination elements may thus be provided, and these may be freely combined.
The termination element may expediently be constructed to be placed below the window element when these are mounted in the door opening, so that the termination element may form a natural part of the building set, as it can illustrate a window box, a wall or the like.
In a preferred embodiment, the walls additionally have at least one window opening which is provided with complementary coupling means for releasable mounting of a window element in the window opening, said window opening in the position of use extending upwards spaced from the bottom edge of the wall and having a height which corresponds to the height of the window element. The window element may hereby be used alone without using the termination element, which provides additional flexibility with respect to the building of the facade.
Further, the window element and the termination element may have mutually complementary coupling means for releasable coupling of the termination element on the window element, said coupling means on the window element being located so as to be accessible for the mounting of the termination element when the window element is mounted in a window opening. Thus, it is possible to use the termination element in connection with a window opening, which additionally increases the number of alternative possibilities of building facades.
In a further expedient embodiment, the coupling means on the door frame and the window frame are the same, thereby reducing the number of separate coupling means.
Particularly expediently, the coupling means may be formed by protruding coupling studs which extend into the plane of the wall when the door frame or the window frame is mounted on the wall, so that the walls may be formed without protruding coupling parts. Here, the coupling studs may advantageously be formed so as to be mountable on the inwardly extending edges on the door and window openings.
The toy building element may advantageously comprise both window elements which are constructed as substantially plane windows, and other window elements which are constructed as bay windows, said termination element being constructed as a bay wall. Then the same termination element may have different functions, since when being built together with a bay window it forms a finished bay, and when being built together with a plane window it may serve as a window box or the like.
Additionally, the termination element may expediently be provided with shelves, drawers or the like on the side facing toward the plane of the wall when the termination element is mounted on the wall. When the termination element is mounted together with a window element in a door opening, the shelves or the drawers will be accessible so that the termination element provides further building flexibility.


REFERENCES:
patent: 2559261 (1951-07-01), Schwartz
patent: 3534494 (1970-10-01), Majima
patent: 4227337 (1980-10-01), Murray et al.
patent: 4270302 (1981-06-01), Dandia
patent: 5733165 (1998-03-01), Kelley
patent: 5779517 (1998-07-01), Clarke
patent: 5890338 (1999-04-01), Rodriguez-Ferre
patent: 5938566 (1999-08-01), Rodriguez-Ferre
patent: 1 013 553 (1957-08-01), None
patent: 2 042 017 (1980-09-01), None
patent: 2 151 933 (1985-07-01), None

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