A cake pan people already tossed
A plastic disc shaped to fly farther
More than 200 million sold by Wham-O
Fred Morrison and his girlfriend found a cake pan flew well on the beach. Pans and pie tins already flew. He made a plastic disc shaped to fly farther.
The everyday problem
People were already tossing pie tins. His change was the shape of a plastic disc that flew farther and could be made the same way every time.
The simple change
- He turned a kitchen pan into a toy with a repeatable shape.
- He received design patent 183,626 on September 30, 1958.
- In 1957 he sold Wham-O the rights to the disc, which he called the Pluto Platter.
What happened
Wham-O has sold more than 200 million Frisbees since 1957, and Morrison kept working with the company for more than 50 years. His patent was a design patent, which protects how a product looks.
What you can take from this
Design patents protect something too: the look of a product. This one covered the shape of the disc that Wham-O went on to sell.
A public story, told here as an example. It is not a client of this practice, and I had no part in it. Results like this are rare. Most patents never earn money, and nothing here is a promise that your idea will be patented or will make money.