Patents on the soles of your shoes...: sculpture

Wednesday, August 13, 2025

Oh, patents! Noguchi's Rocking stool

Isamu Noguchi’s Rocking stool, designed for the Swiss furniture company Vitra in the 1950s, was re-issued by the American furniture company Knoll, from 2001 to 2009. The stool was manufactured in two sizes, low and high, made of maple on top and chrome-plated steel rods. The stool rocks gently as the base is cambered.

The Noguchi Rocking stool design is patented. The US design patent, USD182038, titled Stool, was awarded on February 4,1958, to Isamu Noguchi. As a reminder, a US design patent only covers the ornamental aspects of an invention, or the way the invention looks. In contrast, a US utility patent covers the way an invention works and/or is produced.

The patent Figure 1 show a perspective view of the inventive design. An early advertisement of the rocking stool is also included.

References
Knoll (company website)
www.knoll.com
The Noguchi Museum (The Isamu Noguchi Garden Museum in Long Island City, NY.)
https://www.noguchi.org/
Vitra (company website)
www.vitra.com

Friday, August 8, 2025

Oh, patents! Isamu Noguchi Akari (sculpture) lamps

The famous and prolific Japanese American sculptor, Isamu Noguchi [1904-1988], created a series of lamps that he called Akari sculptures. A series of sculptures that would bring together traditional Japanese craftsmanship with Western modernism, in new functional ways of lighting. The Japanese term “akari” means light with associations similar to English that include both “illumination” and “weightlessness”.

Noguchi’s light sculptures were consistent with his belief that art should be made accessible for everyone to enjoy. In Noguchi’s own words (2021):

“...The Akari lamps for instance were partly motivated by wanting to have my art in everybody’s home. The smallest can be got for less than 10$. And I think they are as much an expression of myself as anything else I do.”

The functional aspects of Noguchi's Akari sculptures were patented inventions. For example, among several Akari lamp patents awarded to Isamu Noguchi, the US utility patent US2781444, titled Lamp construction, was granted on February 12th, 1957. The patent recites the means to mount an electric bulb onto a Japanese lantern-type lamp, with a scope extending to floor, table, ceiling, wall or bed lamps. Thus, the new patented electric design seeks both to modernize and to preserve the simplicity and compactness of traditional Japanese, candle- or oil powered lanterns. Lanterns that were also made to collapse flat, so they might be shipped in envelopes. As a result, the invention comprises rapid assembly and disassembly, lightness for storage and shipment, also built into every aspect of the new electrical mounting.

The patent Figure 2 below depicts a side elevation view of the lamp construction. The construction comprises a distensible lampshade 24. The lampshade 24 is secured above by a reduced section 36, resulting from the symmetrical convergence 55 of the vertical, upside-down U-shaped frame 22. A “spider” frame 23, attached to the lowest lampshade ring 49, further secures the lower end of the lampshade 24. Inside the vertical, upside-down U-shaped frame 22, a bulb 21 is mounted on a socket 20. The socket 20, slips through an opening, at the lower curved end 38 of the vertical, upside-down U-shaped frame 22.

An image of a marketed floor lamp embodiment of the invention is included below the patent Figure 2, as well as the open "pizza box" conditioning for the compact Akari floor lamp 5A and its assembly.