Patent Application
20180255924
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
The disclosure and prior art relates to building brick devices and more particularly pertains to a new building brick device for holding small articles within a larger structure of toy building bricks.
An embodiment of the disclosure meets the needs presented above by generally comprising a mounting brick that has a plurality of sides including a top side, a bottom side, a front side, rear side, a first lateral side, and a second lateral side. A plurality of male interconnection members is integrally coupled to the top side of the mounting brick and extending away therefrom. A female interconnection member extends into and is integral to the bottom side of the mounting brick. The male and female interconnection members releasably engage bricks from a building brick system and engage male and female interconnection members of other mounting bricks. The front side of the mounting brick is open to define an access to an interior of the mounting brick to facilitate the positioning of articles within the mounting brick. The access is the only opening into the interior.
There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the disclosure in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are additional features of the disclosure that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
The objects of the disclosure, along with the various features of novelty which characterize the disclosure, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure.
The disclosure will be better understood and objects other than those set forth above will become apparent when consideration is given to the following detailed description thereof. Such description makes reference to the annexed drawings wherein:
With reference now to the drawings, and in particular to
As best illustrated in
The male 26 and female 28 interconnection members are configured to releasably engage bricks from a building brick system and to engage male 26 and female 28 interconnection members of other ones of the building brick assembly 10. Thus, while the assembly 10 may be used with bricks already commercially available, the assembly 10 may include a plurality of interconnectable mounting bricks 12.
Brick systems utilizing similar structures for frictionally coupling together toy bricks 30 are ubiquitous in the toy arts and are found in multiple references such as U.S. Pat. No. 3,005,282. These toy bricks 30 may be found, for instance, being sold under the names Lego and Duplo. Generally, the male interconnection member 26 includes one or more male protrusions that extend upwardly from an upper surface of the toy brick 30. The female interconnection member 28 includes one or more recesses for receiving the male interconnection member 26 that would be found on the toy bricks 30. The recesses may be formed in any conventional manner.
The front side 18 of the mounting brick 12 is open to define an access 32 to an interior 34 of the mounting brick 12. The access 32 may comprise the only opening into the interior 34. The access 32 extends from a top wall 36 to a bottom wall 38 of the mounting brick 12 and may extend from a first lateral wall 40 to a second lateral wall 42. The access 32 allows for any article, and in particular small toys, toy figurines and accessories therefore, to be stored or hidden within the assembly 10 as the child plays with the mounting brick 12.
A dividing wall 44 may be positioned in the interior 34. The dividing wall 44 may be used to divide the interior 34 into an upper receiving space 46 and a lower receiving space 48, wherein the upper receiving space 46 is positioned adjacent to the top wall 36. The dividing wall 44 may be fixed in position or be slidably mounted on a pair of guides 50 attached to the mounting brick 12 such that the dividing wall 44 is removable from the mounting brick. The guides 50 extend from the access 32 to a back wall 52 of the mounting brick 12. This allows a person to customize the interior depending on the size of the toy(s) to be positioned therein.
Also, a door 54 may be positioned on the mounting brick 12 and be positioned in a closed position closing the access 32 or an open position exposing the access 32 and the interior 34. The door 54 may be pivotally coupled to the mounting brick 12 in a conventional manner such as, for example, by pins, not shown, positioned on the door 54 which extend into the mounting brick 12 to pivotally hold the door 54 in place. The door 54 may frictionally engage an interior surface of the access 32 to retain the door 54 in the closed position and a grip 56 may be provided to facilitate moving of the door 54 from the closed position to the open position.
In use, the mounting brick 12 may be used as conventional building toy brick to create a layered structure of toy bricks or “bricks.” However, the mounting brick 12 of the assembly 10 allows a person using the mounting brick to store, hide, or display articles, such as accessories for figurines, small toys or small figurines, within the mounting brick. The mounting brick 12 may be comprised of any conventional material used for mounting bricks, however, while the mounting brick 12, dividing wall 44 and door 54 would each typically be opaque, each may also be comprised of a transparent plastic material to allow viewing of the article through the mounting brick 12 from all directions.
With respect to the above description then, it is to be realized that the optimum dimensional relationships for the parts of an embodiment enabled by the disclosure, to include variations in size, materials, shape, form, function and manner of operation, assembly and use, are deemed readily apparent and obvious to one skilled in the art, and all equivalent relationships to those illustrated in the drawings and described in the specification are intended to be encompassed by an embodiment of the disclosure.
Therefore, the foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the principles of the disclosure. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the disclosure to the exact construction and operation shown and described, and accordingly, all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the disclosure. In this patent document, the word “comprising” is used in its non-limiting sense to mean that items following the word are included, but items not specifically mentioned are not excluded. A reference to an element by the indefinite article “a” does not exclude the possibility that more than one of the element is present, unless the context clearly requires that there be only one of the elements.
