european PATENTS


On the pages about the european and american patents you will find an excerpt out of my inquiry into the patent library in Rijswijk, the Netherlands, that was focused on mouthpieces and ligatures only.

These patents are divided over two pages and classified by origin and chronology. Some entries give only a brief indication of the content data; with others you can click to the entire contents in PDF-format. It is impressive to see how much creativity is documented over the years. The list has some well known, but a lot more unknown names and counts many inventions which have not survived. Probably just as much more ingenuity will never have been documented. It is interesting to see that claims of novelty that you encounter here and there prove to be entirely unjustified: most of it has already been invented and tried out long ago.

Finally it is good to remember that the patent office is not interested in (scientific) truth. That a patent exists, does not mean that the thought behind it is also a correct one.

Patent no. alternative no. date name type

BELGIAN patents
BE1000687A4 1989 Louis 'sphere chamber' mouthpiece

BRITISH patents
   626 478 7-15-'49 Kjeldsen adjustably mounted 'floating' reed
   646 895 11-29-'50 Walton chamber with interchangeable elements

FRENCH patents
   424 861 1911 single reed mouthpiece for sarrusophone
   603 056 1-6-'26 Bercioux chamber form
   655 634 4-22-'29 Chiron chamber form
   702 898 4-18-'31 Carre metal mouthpiece-neck joint
   778 530 3-18-'35 Elwarth reed with a thin spot
   828 226 5-12-'38 Perrier adjustable tip opening
1 078 574 1954 sidelong support on to the reed

GERMAN patents
   593 340 12-30-'32 Seiffarth chamber form, passage into the neck
   746 871 1-20-'44 Kemenater ligature
1 217 758 5-26-'66 Strathmann adjustable chamber form

EUROPEAN system
0 055 519 US 4 212 037 11-24-'81 Winslow ligature
0 189 223 1-10-'86 Dossecker adjustable tip opening
0 198 541 NL 8501136 4-8-'86 Visser chamber form
WO91\14258 DE P4007 386.6 9-19-'91 Börner chamber form
0 499 070A1 IT MI91A000396 1-24-'92 Barbaglia ligature
0 509 963A2 4-14-'92 Haferkorn calculations on chamber form
0 604 267A1 FR 9 215 717 12-14-'93 Vandoren ligature with eccenters
0 714 086 FR 9 414 025 5-29-'96 Vandoren ligature