Education has allowed us to expand the minds of our youth and has allowed adults to continue learning. In the old days, a classroom traditionally didn’t involve a lot of stuff. At most, you could expect a chalkboard, some chalk, paper and pencils. Today, our classrooms have expanded far beyond these necessities, providing revolutionary new ways to engage students and communicate essential principles. Here are some of the many patents that have evolved with technology, learning, and all aspects of the education experience.

Wheeled Backpack

The American Chiropractic Association recommends that children’s backpacks weigh no more than 10% of their own weight. But many today know that with the removal of school lockers, the increasing homework rate and the trend of kids slinging their backpacks off one shoulder, backpacks commonly exceed that recommendation. This is not only troublesome for parents who are concerned about their child’s homework load, it could also lead to back problems such as scoliosis and back pain for the child during their youth and later in life. One savvy patent lifted the heavy backpack burden for hundreds of thousands of school children with the creation of a wheeled backpack. Students could now carry around their backpack with them, but like luggage — on wheels. This significantly reduced the strain on their backs and was fun to carry around.

Skip It

Physical education is important to any learning environment. One of the classic school toys that promised fun and a great workout for kids was the patented Skip It. This toy was a ring that went around your ankle that had a bar or rope attached to it and a ball or small weighted stationary part on the other end. Often, the weighted part counted the number of rotations that the device made around your ankle and you could walk or run with the device simply by jumping over the rope with your free foot while moving. This patent resurged as a popular toy in the 1990s.

Pencil Case 

Long gone are the days of pencils, pens, markers and other writing utensils rolling around in the bottom of your backpack. With the patenting of the pencil case, and the many design variations of it in size and material, the pencil case without a doubt transformed school age organization. Back in the 1920s when fountain pens were at the height of their popularity, they were considered works of art and were carried around everywhere. Now, a variety of writing utensils are ubiquitous on back-to-school lists. The first patent for the pencil case had 6 slots in it, which is pretty minimal compared to today’s pencil cases.

Lunchbox

The lunchbox is a classic school staple, commonly used even after our school years. Lunchboxes have evolved over the decades from metal lunchboxes used by men in the military to the plastic kid’s character lunchboxes of modern times. Today’s lunchboxes are insulated and even come with separate compartments for an icepack or a drink. One of the first lunchbox patents was created in the 1860s even though they were used in some form much earlier to carry food items.

Here at Global Patent Solutions, we’ve received the best education in patent search practices in order to help our clients find out if their ideas have existing prior art. If you have an education based idea and would like to see if there is prior art already in existence, Global Patent Solutions can help you in your search. Contact us today for more information.