Bump key patents

[lokkju]

I've seen a lot of info claiming that bumping is some sort of new thing (according to TOOOL, Klaus Noch discovered the issue in 2002), especially in the USA, but when doing my research... perhaps not so much new, as forgotten!

Patent #1639919 (http://www.lokkju.com/physec/pdf/us001639919.pdf)
G. J. Baron - Aug 23, 1927 - "Locksmith's Instrument to open all standard makes of cylindar locks"
A spring loaded bump key and torsion handle

Patent #1667223 (http://www.lokkju.com/physec/pdf/us001667223.pdf)
H. R. Simpson - April 24, 1928 - "Lock Device"
A bump key that uses a "through the key" torsion wrench, and external device for bumping the key - i.e., hammer

[Romstar]

That is correct.

The "bumping" technique has been known in North America for decades. The real issue has been its availability. Until recently, any information on the subject was basically kept to working locksmiths. Additionally, even then some people who couldn't get the technique to work either chose to believe it didn't work or simply forgot about it.

The advent of lock picking as a wide spread hobby and even a sport changed all of that. The internet allowed so many people to share their interests in picking and manipulation that for the first time it was practical to actually have hobby and sport groups. It was only a matter of time before someone either heard about, or "discovered" bumping for themselves.

What really made it spread was the ability to actually SHOW the technique, and convince people that it did actually work. Previously it was all a matter of hit and miss. You made your own keys, and figured out your own technique and maybe you could get it to work, and maybe you didn't. Now, with internet video it was possible to silence the skeptics and make believers of everyone.

Bumping worked, and here's the proof.

Now the lock industry has the embarassing situation of explaining to their customers that they knew about this "flaw" for a long time, but because of the widespread lack of knowledge simply did nothing about it. Sport lockpicking let that particular "genie" out of the bottle and took what had been an interesting quirk, and turned it into a widespread panic.

So you are correct in thinking that the technique was simply "forgotten", because that is basically the case. It was hushed up, and pushed out the back door, and into the dark corners of the locksmith's tool box where it languished for a long time.

My grandfather used to say that it was funny what you see when you shine a brighter light on something. I guess he was right after all.

Romstar

[lokkju]

heh, patents are so fun - though it sucks to not have full text search (or even title or inventor name) before 1976. There is a trick though, that I use, and that is the US Classification. For instance, lock picks are usually patented under 70/394 - and it just happens, the US Classification is one of the searchable fields for ALL years of US patents (along with Issue Date and patent number)

[Romstar]

Consider what you found, 1927 and 1928.

Most of our tools were developed between 1905 and 1930. Everything after that is a refinement of some sort. Even the electric pick gun was developed close to this period.

Oddly enough, for a long period of time, a great number of the patents originated out of New York during that period.

Kinda interested from a historical point of view.

Romstar

[timal]

Very interesting.

[lokkju]

Romstar, I've noticed - I'm in the process of taking most 109 (safes) and 70/390 (pick) patents from all years, converting them to pdf, and extracting out the basic inventor name/title/abstract - and perhaps full text, if the OCR works well enough

Goal is to essentially have an actual searchable resource for the info

[Schuyler]

Romstar, I've noticed - I'm in the process of taking most 109 (safes) and 70/390 (pick) patents from all years, converting them to pdf, and extracting out the basic inventor name/title/abstract - and perhaps full text, if the OCR works well enough

Goal is to essentially have an actual searchable resource for the info

Noble goal. If you want to toss normal (and eccentric) locks into that, it would extremely cool.

[lokkju]

I'm sorta thinking of all classification 70 - which would be 32,000 documents (70 is all the locks and lock related items).

The main problem is getting the rest of the information in - you can't really just extract the data programmatically, you have to have some human input.

One idea I have is to show the data that IS available, along with a pdf of the images (and an online pdf reader - shows jpgs of each page), and let the person browsing the site submit record updates - so if someone is browsing, say, classification 70/390, lockpicks, as they look at a patent, they could go ahead and type in the inventor name, title, etc.

[Romstar]

You're going to find a lot of redundent material in there. Extensions of patents, revisions and all sorts of mess.

When you look at how many patents are the same basic thing, but changed slightly to satisfy a patent researcher you start to whittle the number down some more.

If you want to have some fun, look at the patent that was granted to Golden Scorpion for the CX-5 lock. It has nothing to do so much with the lock, but for a method to reduce wear in a lock.

Lets them say its patented, but not generally as to WHAT is patented.

In a great number of cases, you see some minor change to extend a patent. The Medeco M3 is a great case of this situation.

Class 70 is going to drive you insane if you try to sort through all of them.

Good luck though,
Romstar

[lokkju]

Trust me, I've allready seen it. This isn't my first time working with patents though, so I know what to expect - and breaking down by subclassification will help people decide what is interesting to look at

I may consider other things besides the 109 (safes) and 70 (locks) categories, if anyone has requests...

I should have an initial semi working mockup in the next few days to give people an idea of how it would work

[Shrub]

That sounds a great project, can i ask if its allowed to do that? as in copying the patents and modifying them and then making them available from somewhere other than the patent site?

[lokkju]

Patent applications are public domain:

The USPTO says: "Patents are published as part of the terms of granting the patent to the inventor. Subject to limited exceptions reflected in 37 CFR 1.71(d) & (e) and 1.84(s), the text and drawings of a patent are typically not subject to copyright restrictions. The inventors' right to exclude others from making, using, offering for sale, or selling the invention throughout the United States or importing the invention into the United States for a limited time is not compromised by the publication of the description of the invention. In other words, the fact that a patent's description may have been published without copyright restrictions does not give you permission to manufacture or use the invention without permission from the inventor during the active life of the patent."

And 57 CFR 1.71 says:
(d)
A copyright or mask work notice may be placed in a design or utility patent application adjacent to copyright and mask work material contained therein. The notice may appear at any appropriate portion of the patent application disclosure. For notices in drawings, see § 1.84(s). The content of the notice must be limited to only those elements provided for by law. For example, "copyright 1983 John Doe" (17 U.S.C. 401) and " *M* John Doe" (17 U.S.C. 909) would be properly limited and, under current statutes, legally sufficient notices of copyright and mask work, respectively. Inclusion of a copyright or mask work notice will be permitted only if the authorization language set forth in paragraph (e) of this section is included at the beginning (preferably as the first paragraph) of the specification.
(e)
The authorization shall read as follows:

A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material which is subject to (copyright or mask work) protection. The (copyright or mask work) owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but otherwise reserves all (copyright or mask work) rights whatsoever.


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So, yeah, perfectly legal - in order to file a patent, they have to give up all rights to the patent document itself

[unjust]

and seem to be a bit dense in searching the patent office site.

what would be the boolean string to look for patents classified as locks or lock related?

and anyone have a notion why i only get to see the top half inch of the first tool mentioned in this thread?

[lokkju]

Ok people, so I now officially hate google...

I was through with converting 50K patents to full text, and my viewing tool was almost done, and then I find a press release from google in my RSS feed...

As of this morning, Google has released a new search - full text searching of all (7 million plus) US patents. While the OCR isn't perfect, and the pages are a bit blurry, that is normal...

So anyhow, anyone who wants can now go search at http://www.google.com/patents

One service I'll provide if anyone wants is a web service that you give it a patent number, and it gives ti to you as a high-quality PDF

Have Fun!