Matching a current lock to a patent number

[djslacker]

OK, I did a quick search but I didn't find anything close so I'll give it a go.

Does anyone know of a database or a section of a manufacturer's website to look to find out the patent number for a certain lock? You can search for patents for a padlock, but how can you tell if a certain patent is still being used or if it was found to be too fundamentally flawed and scrapped.

Point being, is there any way that I could find out what patent the Master Lock No. 3 is based off, or a Brinks brass padlock, or a Schlage deadbolt.

I hope that made sense.

[mh]

why would these locks be covered by patents? What's special about them compared to other locks?
I believe the most that exists for them might be some type of design protection?

Cheers,
mh

[djslacker]

That's not the road that I'm going down.

I'm talking about the fact that I can pull up at least 5 different patents for a combination padlock.

http://www.google.com/patents?rview=1&num=100&q=combination+padlock&btnG=Search+Patents

I want to know how I can determine what patent the Master Lock 1500 Padlock was based off of.

http://www.masterlock.com/cgi-bin/product_detail.pl?dir=dir=/cgi-bin/class_search.pl?layer=layer1&displaynav=&parent_id=&sub_cat_id=D19211&template=app

I know that on some patents there is an actual company name under the Assignee title, but not on all of them. Plus, sometimes it's a daunting task to try and track the same company through name changes and buy-outs.

(All specific products that I am using are just examples)

[greyman]

It doesn't work like that. If the manufacturer doesn't want to reveal the patent number in an obvious way (eg by stamping it on the key) then they won't make it easy for you. Best bet is search for patents by assignee = manufacturer. Quite often they use silly patent titles that make it hard to search for, eg "locking mechanism" or some such.