NZ513631A - Magnetically attractable label formed from paper with ferrous material attached in zones - Google Patents

Abstract

The ferro-sticker comprises a piece of paper with an image on one face, wherein the paper has ferrous material within it, or where powdered ferrous materials are attached externally on one face of the paper. A single zone of ferrous material is positioned in the centre of the paper, or a plurality of zones are arranged in a symmetrical configuration. The ferro-sticker is attractable magnetically, and may be used as changeable labels for magnetic game boards. Illustrated is a 3-D magnetic cube having three ferro-stickers on the three visible faces of the cube.

Description

51 3 6 5 1 Intellectual' Property Office of New Zealand Te Pou Rihut Hanga Hou PATENTS FORM NO. 5 Patents Act 1953 No. 506708..(a) Date: .31.July 2001 COMPLETE SPECIFICATION (b).. F error? Sticker I (or WE), (c) Tseng, Da.of.9. Earls .Court, Hamilton),. New .Zealand,.

Nationalityi Republic of .China. (Taiwan) hereby declare the invention, for which I (or wo) pray that a patent may be granted to me (or us), and the method by which it is to be performed, to be particularly described in and by the following statement M>.

TheFisldof Mfoyw&m;.

.This .invention, relates, to.a new. material, that may. be .used. in... educational .tools, puzzles,. games, or.playing .things,. specially. -suitable .for making images, on .the. feces. .oOrDiraensional magnetic, .cub.es .or. .d.Qub.Iersid.ed .magnetic .letter .tiles, (a) Where priority as provided by subsection (2) or subsection (3) of section 11 of the Patents Act 1953 is desired in respect of one or more provisional specifications, quote number or numbers and date or dates (b) Insert title of Invention (c) State (in full) name, address, and nationality of applicant or applicants as in application form (d) Here begin full description of invention. The continuation of the specification should be upon paper of the same size as this form, on one side only, with the lines well spaced and with a margin of 2.5 cm on the left hand part of the paper.

The completion of the description should be followed by the words "What I (or we) claim is" after which should be written the claim or claims numbered consecutively. (See note below.) The specification and the duplicate thereof must be signed at the end NOTE.—The claims must relate to a single invention, must be clear and succinct, and must be fairly based on the matter disclosed in the specification. They should form in brief a clear statement of that which constitutes the invention. Applicants should be careful that their claims include neither more nor less than they desire to protect by their patent Any unnecessary multiplicity of claims or prolixity of language should be avoided. Claims should not be made for the efficiency or aflftgfyggs, offhts fnygr^^i.

Office of AOS 200? RECEIVED The Problems to be solved: F had made some 3-Dimensional magnetic cubes (Ref NZ 337644 and WO 01/17625), each cube can be easily connected by another cube in six directions, and can be easily separated from the connector(s) even if the unit is sandwiched between two cubes, and can be hung, not supported The 3-D cubes are ideal educational tools for playing 3-D word Games/Puzzles, but not cheap, because the magnets are expensive. The preferred arrangement of magnets on each face of each cube is - one on the center and four on the comers (symmetrical positions), then each cube need JO pieces of magnets, the cost of whole set is very high.

It is very hard to determine the best distribution of letters for a 3-D word game, therefore I had thought very deeply about the problem below: How can we use the letter cubes wisely, each letter is neither insufficient nor overstock"? A similar problem exists in another application of mine (NZ 506708) We can not determine the best combinations of the letters marked on the second faces of the double-sided tiles. How canweeasily change the letters marked on the faces of the educational tiles'? The answer is not obvious.

We ordinarily print the letters or images on the faces of the cubes of tiles, or glue the pnnted stickers on it, it is not easy to change the letters or images on the faces of a cube or tile The object of the invention: The object of the present invention is to provide a new material "Ferro-Sticker" and a new method for changing the letters or images on the faces of a cube or tile, and the same method and the new material may be used in other educational tools, games/puzzles, or playing things.

Definition of Ferro-Sticker A Ferro-Sticker is apiece of paper, contains ferrous material within it, or ferrous substances which contain size-reduced magnetizable metals (such as Iron powder or Iron sand) have been attached externally to the face of the sticker, the Ferro-Sticker is not self-adhesive, but magnetically adhering; the Ferro-Sticker is usedfor making image on the faceof a magnetic, cube, magnetic tile, or any solid object that has magnet on its surface with the polarity facing out; the Ferro-Sticker is able to be attached on or removed from the magnetic connector easily The construction of the invention: The aspect and advantages of the present invention will now be described with reference to the accompanying drawings, of which; Fig 1 shows a 3-D magnetic cube, three Ferro-Stickers on the three visible faces of the cube, and a separate Ferro-Stieker Each face (21) of each cube (2) has five magnets (22) with the polarity facing out, and each Ferro-Sticker (1) is attracted by the magnets (22) on the face of the cube (2), the images of Ferro-Stickers (1) are omitted Intellectual Property Office of NZ 2 2 h SEP 2001 RECEIVED Each Ferro-Sticker (1) is a piece of paper (11) contains ferrous material within it, or ferrous substances which contain size-reduced magnetizable metals (such as Iron powder or Iron sand) have been attached externally to the face of the sticker in the ferrous part (12) or ferrous parts (12) of the paper; the ferrous part(s) can be attracted by magnet(s).

When the Ferro-Sticker (1) has just one ferrous part (12) then the ferrous part (12) is in the central position of the Ferro-Sticker (1) When the Ferro-Sticker (1) has more than one ferrous parts (12) then the configuration of the ferrous parts (12) is symmetrical Each Ferro-Sticker (1) has at least one image on one of its two faces, the image may be one of an individual letter, a character, a word, a digit, a solid colour, a pictorial element, a picture or a portion of a picture In Fig 1, each Ferro-Sticker (1) has five ferrous parts (12), and the configuration of the ferrous parts is symmetrical. This structure ensure the cube to keep the Ferro-Stickers in right place more firmly If the Ferro-Sticker is made of Ferro-Paper that contains ferrous material in it, the whole paper is ferrous, then it can be attracted by magnet as well, but maybe can not be kept in right place firmly.

How the invention works: The faces of the magnetic cubes or tiles may be designed to be indented For each tile, the depth of the indented part is notTess than the thickness of the Ferro-Strcker. For each cube, the. depth of the indented.partis equivalent to the thickness of the Ferro-Sticker.

So that the magnetic tiles or cubes with the Ferro-Stickers have the same function of normal magnetic tiles or cubes.

There are at least two ways to remove the Ferro-Sticker from the cube or tile: using a knife to pick the Ferro-Sticker up, or using a magnet that is stronger than the magnets on the cube or tile to attract the Ferro-Sticker Since the Ferro-Stickers can be attached on or separated from the magnetic cubes or tiles easily, we can easily change the letters marked on the faces of a cubes or tiles, the problems stated above were perfectly solved.

The Ferro-Stickers are comparatively much cheaper than the magnetic cubes or tiles, need quite a small storage space, and furthermore, the same set of magnetic cubes or tiles may be accompamed with a plurality of sets of Ferro-Stickers with different letters (e g.

English, Greek, or Japanese), can be used to play different word games, and now playing Chinese 3-D Cross-Phrase would become possible. (It is not convement to play the Chinese word game with thousands of character cubes or tiles.) The Ferro-Sticker may be used in other educational tools, puzzles/games, or playing things, for example, put magnet(s) in each of the grids (squares) of a playing board with the polarity facing out, then each lettered Ferro-Sticker may be fixed in a grid while playing Crossword puzzle, or board games.

Aspects of the present invention have been described by way only and it should be appreciated that modifications and additions may be made thereto without departing from the scope of the appended claims.

Intellectual Property Office of NZ 3 2 * SEP 2001 n pr»r i\/rn

Claims (3)

What I Claim is:

1 A set of magnetically attractable Ferro-Stickers including a plurality of Ferro-Stickers, wherein each Ferro-Sticker comprises a piece of paper with two faces; the paper containing ferrous material withm it, or having powdered ferrous materials attached externally on one face of the paper; wherem each Ferro-Sticker has at least one image on one of its two faces; the image being selected from an individual letter, a character, a word, a digit, a solid colour, a pictorial element, a picture or a portion of a picture

2. A set of Ferro-Stickers as claimed in claim 1, wherem the ferrous materials are positioned in a single portion m the centre of the paper; or the ferrous materials are positioned m a plurality of portions of the paper, the ferrous portions of the paper being arranged in a symmetrical configuration.

3. A set of Ferro-Stickers substantially as herein described with reference to and as illustrated by the accompanying drawings and examples. END OF CLAIMS intellectual property ' office of NZ. 2 i OCT 2001 RECEIVED