Looking for any information on a plastic Butterfly hinge design

I know these as 'living' hinges, so a google search on this should throw up something.

gives a quick start.

TTFN

Jonathan

>

Hello Larry,

I call these "Living Hinges" and I have a SW example of one. If you would like the example just email me @ :

snipped-for-privacy@comcast.net

Just take out the trash.

Muggs

Actually, the Butterfly hinge is in the family of the Living Hinge but a different variation. I have designed in many living hinges and have thoose specifications. I am looking for a peticular style that is refered to as the "Butterfly Hinge" which has two wings on either side of the living hinge which creates a snapping action on the closing portion of the lid.

Design of living hinges is heavily driven by choice of material and by the number of times the hinge is exercised. If you go to the GE Plastics website, there is a design guide that has information on designing living hinges. That is the best resource for that (at least that I know of).

M> Actually, the Butterfly hinge is in the family of the Living Hinge but

I've also been looking at living hinge issues including "flip top" type designs, some of which are patented.

check the

and learn how to do the advanced searches on Class-Subclass so you can see all the patents in a given area.

Check out the following:

Class 220-827 Class 220-838 Class 220-839

I know I have more info around and downloaded patents, but they are for other purposes than bottle cap type functions.

It takes munging around the patent office files to find a relevant patent and then search for patents that reference that patent later in addition to those referenced in the patent from before and also checking out the other patents in all the referenced Class-Subclasses for that & similar relevant patents.

Bo

ljedik wrote:

Well I learn something everyday. Sounds like a detailed design which people won't want to make public.

As for patents - good luck with the searches but be aware that people make a habit of trying to file the patents in the most obscure catorgories, and that using a patent atterney to do the search at least gives you some protection when you infringe.

TTFN

Jonathan

Actually, many shampoo bottles and similar consumer one piece flip-top plastic caps use these types of bi-stable hinges.

The hardest and most unknown area of searching is for things NOT patented which will also be "prior art", and foreign patents which are less easily obtainable and usually require a small fee to get a copy. You can get a start on this avenue from:

The use of searches based on Class-Subclass in the patent office is the way you search on a specific catagory, in spite of what the inventor used as a name for the patent.

Once you get a specific relevant patent, you can then looked at the referenced patents at the time of its issuance, and then ALSO search for any patent that referenced that patent after that time up to today with the Advanced search functions at the USPTO.gov reachable from this page for free:

Bo

Also look at a japanese company with a new uniques flip-cap

Bo