Abstract:
A stable board book has multiple stiff pages bound together and a stand connected to an end panel for holding the pages vertical when the book is put on a surface and each page is opened. The stand is attached by a hinge to the top cover of the book and by a hinge to the end panel. The end panel is attached by a hinge to the ventral edge of the bottom page of the book. The length of the stand is at least ½ of the length of the cover so that when the pages are opened and leaned against the stand, they will be stable and not fall back down.

Description:
COPYRIGHT AND TRADEMARK NOTICE 
     A portion of the disclosure of this patent document contains material to which a claim for copyright is made. The copyright owner has no objection to the facsimile reproduction by anyone of the patent document or the patent disclosure, as it appears in the Patent and Trademark Office patent file or records, but reserves all other copyright rights whatsoever. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     Miniature golf is a popular game. A new type of miniature golf uses a board book to allow users to play miniature golf on a table top. As used herein, a “board book” is a book with stiff pages. A page is stiff if it can hold its own weight when held horizontally or vertically.  FIG. 1  is a perspective view of a prior board book  100  called “The Miniature Book of Miniature Golf”. The book comprises a plurality of stiff pages  102 , binding for the pages  104 , a stand  106  and an end panel  109 . The stand and end panel are made from creased card stock about 1/64 inch thick. The stand is hingedly connected to the front cover  107  of the book and the end panel. The end panel is hingedly connected to the stand and the last page  111  of the book. When the book is closed, the stand rests against the front cover and the end panel rests against the book binding. When the book is open, the stand supports opened pages  108  in an upright orientation. 
     Each page represents a hole of golf. A portion of each page is recessed  115 . The recess is a portion of the course. An opening  110  is provided in the recess that goes through the page to a corresponding course on the page below. The opening is seen as a “cup” in golf. In order to play a hole, a user  112  holds a small club  114  and hits a small ball  116  along the course. When the ball goes in the cup, the hole is complete and the ball passes through to the course below. The user then lifts up the page and rests it against the stand to reveal the page below. The ball that went through the cup is now on the course of the next hole on the page below. The user then continues to hit the ball until it goes in that page&#39;s cup. This process is repeated until the last page is reached. Score is based on how many hits a user needs to complete each hole. 
     One of the limitations of the prior art board book is that some pages are unstable in the opened position. The prior art board book has 10 pages including the cover. The cover is page 1. Each page is about 6 inches long ( 122 ), 6 inches wide ( 124 ) and ⅛ inch thick ( 126 ). 10 pages are joined together. The end panel is about 1.38 inches long ( 128 ). This is about the same as the combined thickness of the pages. The stand is about 1.5 inches long ( 132 ). Thus the ratio of stand length to page length is about 0.25. It has been found by experiment that for this ratio of stand length to page length, pages 7 and 8 are unstable in the open position. When pages 7 or 8 are opened and placed against the stand, they will spontaneously flip back  118  to the closed position and interfere with play. There is need, therefore, for a board book design where all of the pages are stable in the open configuration. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     The summary of the invention is provided as a guide to understanding the invention. It does not necessarily describe the most generic embodiment of the invention or the broadest range of alternative embodiments. 
       FIG. 2  is a side view of a stable board book  200 . The stable board book is similar in construction to the prior art board book except that the ratio of the length  234  of the stand  202  to the length  208  of a page is much greater. It has been found that when the ratio of stand length to page length is 0.7 or greater then all of the pages are stable  236  in the upright orientation. The stable board book, therefore, can be used to make a miniature golf game that does not suffer from pages flipping back down on the player. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a perspective view of a prior art board book. 
         FIG. 2  is a side view of a stable board book. 
         FIG. 3  is a side view of an alternative stable board book showing details of construction. 
         FIG. 4A  is a side view of an alternative board book with unstable page construction. 
         FIG. 4B  is a side view of an alternative board book with stable page construction. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION 
     The detailed description describes non-limiting exemplary embodiments. Any individual features may be combined with other features as required by different applications for at least the benefits described herein. As used herein, the term “about” means plus or minus 10% of a given value unless specifically indicated otherwise. 
     Referring to  FIG. 2 , a stable board book comprises a plurality of pages  204 . Each page has a thickness  206  and a length  208 . A suitable thickness is about ⅛ inch. A suitable length is about 6 inches. The pages may be constructed of any stiff material, such as card stock, utility board or illustration board. Each page may be constructed by gluing, or otherwise attaching, two or more layers of board to get a desired thickness. A double layer of about 0.8 ounce illustration board is suitable. The pages can be any width. A suitable width is about 6 inches. There can be any number of pages. 10 pages is a suitable number of pages including the cover  210 . Adjacent pages  204 ,  212  may be bound together along their adjacent ventral edges  215 ,  217  with a thin flexible film  214 . The film is flexible enough to form a page hinge  216  when said film spans from one page to the next. The page hinges form the binding. Other bindings may be used. The film may be printable glossy paper stock with an image printed thereupon. Appendix A attached hereto provides exemplary images that may be printed on the pages of a stable board book. 
     The dorsal end  201  of the stand  202  may be attached to the cover  210  by a stand hinge  220 . The stand hinge may comprise a flexible film. The ventral end of the stand may be attached to the dorsal end of an end panel  224  by a panel hinge  222 . The ventral end of the end panel may be attached to the ventral end  226  of the last page  227  by a binding hinge  228 . 
     The length  230  of the end panel should be equal to or greater than the combined thickness of the pages of the book  232 . Thus the end panel will rest against the binding when the book is closed. The length of the stand  234  should be large enough so that all pages of the book are stable in the upright position  236  when opened. It has been found that a ratio of stand length to page length of 0.7 or greater produces a stable book. 
     Example 1 
     A 10 page stable board book was constructed according to  FIG. 2 . Each page was about ⅛ inch thick. The pages were about 6 inches long by 6 inches wide. Each page was constructed by gluing two pieces of 0.8 ounce board stock together. Paper glued to the boards was used for constructing all hinges. The end panel was about 1.25 inches long. Different book designs were evaluated with different stand lengths to determine page stability. The results are presented in table  1 . 
     
       
         
               
               
               
             
               
               
               
             
           
               
                   
                 TABLE 1 
               
               
                   
                   
               
               
                   
                 Ratio of stand length 
                 Unstable 
               
               
                   
                 to page length 
                 pages 
               
               
                   
                   
               
             
             
               
                   
               
             
          
           
               
                   
                 0.83 
                 none 
               
               
                   
                 0.78 
                 none 
               
               
                   
                 0.67 
                 9 
               
               
                   
                 0.50 
                 9 
               
               
                   
                 0.33 
                 8,9 
               
               
                   
                 .25 (prior art) 
                 7,8 
               
               
                   
                 0.17 
                 7,8,9 
               
               
                   
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
     Data for the prior art book is shown for comparison. It was found that longer stand lengths were more stable than shorter stand lengths. A ratio of stand length to 0.5 or greater was significantly more stable than the prior art. Ratios of 0.78 and 0.83 were stable for all pages. It is expected that a ratio of 0.7 will also be stable for all pages. 
     Combined Stand and Cover 
       FIG. 3  shows a cross section of a stable board book with a combined cover and stand design  300 . The book is shown with four pages  302 . Each page comprises a top board  304  and a bottom board  306  glued together. Each board has a thickness  305  of about 1/16 inch. The top board may have a portion  308  removed to form a cavity when glued to the bottom board. This becomes the course for a golf game. A playing surface  316  may be provided. This corresponds to a green in golf. The playing surface may have a rough texture to correspond to grass. Hazard portions  318  of the course may be provided. The hazard portions are slightly recessed below the playing surface so that if the ball  312  falls in them, it&#39;s harder to hit out. If the ball is hit  314  to the cup opening  310  of the bottom board, it will fall through to the course of the page below  309 . The player will lift the page and rest it against the stand and then play the next hole. A printable film  320  is provided on the top surface of each page and spans to the bottom surface  322  of the prior page. This forms a page hinge  324  between the adjacent pages. 
     The top cover  330  comprises a top board  334  and a bottom board  332 . The top board comprises a first portion  336  and a stand  338 . The first portion of the top board is joined to the bottom board. The stand is joined to the first portion by a stand hinge  344 . A suitable hinge comprises a flexible hinge film  346  joining the stand to the first portion of the top board. Flexible film may be provided on both sides of the stand. A gap  342  may be provided between the first portion of the top board and the stand to allow the film to flex. A suitable gap is about ⅛ inch. The combined cover and stand design allows for a much thicker  340  and therefore stronger stand to be used than the prior art book. This is required for the larger stand lengths relative to the prior art. 
     The panel hinge  352  and the binding hinge  356  have similar construction to the stand hinge. It has been found that the stability of the book is improved if the internal length  362  of the end panel  354  is slightly larger than the combined internal thickness of the pages  364  so that there is a small gap between the stand and the bottom board of the cover when the book is closed. 1/16 is a suitable increase in length between the internal length of the end panel and the combined internal thickness of the pages. The internal lengths are defined as being measured from the inside surface of the stand  372  to the surface the book is sitting  374  when the book is closed. 
     Stable Page Construction 
       FIGS. 4A and 4B  shows side views of details of alternative page constructions.  4 A shows a relatively unstable page construction.  4 B shows a relatively stable page construction. Referring to  FIG. 4A , a detail  400  of page construction is shown. A page  401  comprises a top board  402  and a bottom board  406 . The top board is indented  404  relative to the bottom board. It was found that for indents as small as 1/64 inch, the stability of the page was reduced and the page would flip back  408  after being opened. 
     Referring to  FIG. 4B , a more stable page construction  410  is illustrated. In this configuration, the bottom board  412  of a page  418  is indented  414  relative to the top board  416 . The indent  414  may be as small as 0 inches (i.e. the boards are even) or as large as 1/32 inch. Too large of an indent will not be pleasing aesthetically. The amount of designed indent can be based on the manufacturing tolerances. If the tolerances are +/−5 thousands of an inch, for example, then the designed indent can be 5 thousands so that all actual indents in the produced books will be in the range of about 0 to 10 thousands of an inch. 
     CONCLUSION 
     While the disclosure has been described with reference to one or more different exemplary embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted for elements thereof without departing from the scope of the disclosure. In addition, many modifications may be made to adapt to a particular situation without departing from the essential scope or teachings thereof. Therefore, it is intended that the disclosure not be limited to the particular embodiment disclosed as the best mode contemplated for carrying out this invention.