English(wo)men in New York (Or wherever)
Posted: August 10th, 2010 | Author: mark | Filed under: IP, Knowledge Assets, Patents | Tags: british, brits, designers, designs, Patents | 2 Comments »English(wo)men in New York (Or wherever)
(Or whichever part of The USA they may find themselves)
There’s no doubt that Jonathan Ive, Senior Vice President of Industrial design at Apple Inc, is a highly successful designer. Leaving the shores of Jolly Old England was a great idea for him as it led to him being ranked as ranked by The Sunday Times as one of Britain’s most influential expatriates.
This said, it makes me curious about other Brits who’ve dabbled their hands in the American markets and succeeded. So naturally, I did a search for US granted design patents held by British based inventors, and got this list:
1. Martin WF Dean
A designer for Wolverine World Wide. (i.e. the company that makes Hush Puppies, Caterpillar boots and other work-related footwear brands as well as military boots).
2. Sandra Choi
A designer for the renowned (Malaysian Born) British shoe designer Jimmy Choo. Her most cited shoe is the “coupe” she designed in 2004 (D513846) which is also referenced by designers from Stuart Weitzman.
3. Manon Belley
Another designer for Wolverine World Wide.
4. Grant A Urie
Yet another designer for Wolverine World Wide.
5. James Dyson
A household name in the UK (awful pun intended). Any self respecting product designer in the United Kingdom should be familiar with the works of James Dyson. Most famous for his iconic bag-less cyclonic vacuum cleaners.
6. Anthony Dalby
Nokia Corporation. Designer of many of Nokia’s many mobile handsets, including the N90 design.
The co-designer that Anthony Dalby has worked the most with is Ingve Holmung.
Anthony Dalby had also designed a futuristic looking design for a street cabinet that houses telecommunications equipment; assigned to Nortel. Figure this one out yourselves:
7. Deborah H Andersen
Yet YET another designer for Wolverine World Wide. This American company sure uses a lot of designers from the UK.
8. Pape John A
John Pape registered a number of designs related to baby and toddler toys for Hestair Kiddicraft Limited. His most cited design is for a teether/rattle toy for babies he conceptualized way back in 1987. Recognize it?
9. Thomson Harry S
Another designer for Hestair Kiddicraft who has worked alongside John Pape.
10. Jonathan Kelsey
Another shoe designer for Jimmy Choo. His most cited design is an open toed shoe (D501709) which has oddly been cited by a Nike design (D544691).
So there they are. Britain’s top 10 US design patent holders, by volume, as of date.
By the way, in case you’re wondering. Jonathan Ive has 327 US design patents, all assigned to “Apple Computer.” I guess with a US$1m a year pay packet he doesn’t really need to work for anyone else.
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FYI John Pape/Harry Thomson – more notable items are Webster the Spider and Kidde-Walker, both for Hestair, subsequently Fisher Price.
You’re right about those two being the biggest commercial success. I guess commercial success doesn’t directly equate to lots of citations in most cases.