Patent Publication Number: US-2013252503-A1

Title: Toy brick

Description:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION 
     This application claims priority from Chinese Patent Application No. 201220110066.2, filed 21 Mar. 2012, the contents of which are hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety for all purposes. 
     FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention relates to a field of toy design, and more particularly, to a toy brick. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     There are two kinds of toy bricks which are two-dimensional and three-dimensional toy bricks in the market. The toy brick is usually made of wood or plastic, and has a cubic shape, with letters or patterns decorated on the surface thereof. The toy brick can be differently arranged or built to obtain various houses or animals. 
     Lego is one of the popular toy brick in the world, which made of plastic and invented by a Dane named Ole Kirk. A convex ball is provided at one end of the Lego toy brick, and a hole suitable for the convex ball is provided at the other end of the Lego toy brick. The Lego toy brick has more than 1300 shapes, each of which has 12 different colors mainly including red, yellow, blue, white, and black. Children themselves can manually build them to obtain different constructions through their endless imagination, which renders user to be indulged in Lego, thus it is also called “magic plastic toy brick”. 
     Due to unreasonable structures of the toy brick in prior art, the toy bricks can be merely directly connected to represent a line structure, and cannot be bent to form a flexible structure, which not only limit the imaginary space of users, but also decrease benefits of development of mentality by using toys. It is reported that some toy bricks with specific shape used for flexible connection are manufactured, in order to solve the above questions. But these toy bricks can only apply in specific condition or build a specific construction by means of using toy bricks, which leads to a worse compatibility. 
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     The object of the invention is to provide a toy brick with good compatibility and flexible connection. 
     To achieve the above object, the following technical solution is adopted: 
     a toy brick comprising a main body; a male connecting portion and a female connecting portion being symmetrically provided at two ends of the main body respectively; the male connecting portion being shaped as a ball and the female connecting portion being shaped as a letter “U” in which one end of the U-shaped female connecting portion is connected to the main body, and the other end thereof has two projections which are inwardly bent and an inner side surface that is an arc surface. 
     According to the present invention, the male connecting portion and the female connecting portion are provided at the two ends of the main body respectively, which leads to a flexible engagement effect when the male connecting portion and the female connecting portion are connected each other. The male connecting portion is shaped as a ball and the female connecting portion is shaped as a letter “U”. When the male connecting portion is snapped into the female connecting portion, the main body can be rotated by 180° with respect to the horizontal axis. The two projections of the female portion are designed to be inwardly bent, which can enhance the engagement between the male connection portion and the female connecting portion, and can prevent the male connecting portion from being separated from the female connecting portion. Moreover, the inner arc side surface of the female connecting portion can render the surface of ball-shaped male connecting portion to be better matched the inner arc side surface of the female connecting portion, thereby obtaining a better connecting effect. 
     According to the present invention, a plurality of raised portions is projected on a first surface of the main body, and a plurality of grooves suitable for the raised portion is provided on a second surface of the main body. 
     The above designs can enhance the compatibility of the toy brick, and can used for connecting other kinds of toy brick, which improves the practical applicability of the invention. 
     According to the present invention, said toy brick is made of ABS plastic. 
     By defining the material of the toy brick, the compatibility and consistency of the invention would be better. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       The present invention would be better understood by referring to the accompanying drawings, wherein: 
         FIG. 1  is a perspective view of the toy brick of the present invention; and 
         FIG. 2  is a perspective view of the toy brick shown in  FIG. 1 , which is rotated by 180° with respect to the horizontal axis. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     The invention will be detailed by an exemplary embodiment in combination with the accompanying drawings, in which the embodiment is only used to explain the invention, not to limit the scope of the invention. 
     EXAMPLE 1 
     As illustrated in  FIG. 1 , this example discloses a toy brick comprising a main body  100 , in which a male connecting portion  110  and a female connecting portion  120  are symmetrically provided at the two ends of the main body  100  respectively. The male connecting portion  110  is a ball-shaped member, and the female connecting portion  120  is a U-shaped member. One end of the female connecting portion  120  is connected to the main body  100 , while the other end of the female connecting portion  120  has two projections ( 121 , 122 ) which are inwardly bent, and an inner side surface which is an arc surface. 
     EXAMPLE 2 
     As illustrated in  FIG. 1 , this example discloses a toy brick comprising a main body  100 , in which a male connecting portion  110  and a female connecting portion  120  are symmetrically provided at the two ends of the main body  100  respectively. The male connecting portion  110  is a ball-shaped member, and the female connecting portion  120  is a U-shaped member. One end of the female connecting portion  120  is connected to the main body  100 , while the other end of the female connecting portion  120  has two projections ( 121 , 122 ) which are inwardly bent, and an inner side surface which is an arc surface. 
     As illustrated in  FIG. 2 , a plurality of raised portions  101  is projected on a first surface of the main body  100 , and a plurality of grooves  102  suitable for the raised portion  101  is provided on a second surface of the main body  100 . 
     EXAMPLE 3 
     As illustrated in  FIG. 1 , this example discloses a toy brick comprising a main body  100 , in which a male connecting portion  110  and a female connecting portion  120  are symmetrically provided at the two ends of the main body  100  respectively. The male connecting portion  110  is a ball-shaped member, and the female connecting portion  120  is a U-shaped member. One end of the female connecting portion  120  is connected to the main body  100 , while the other end of the female connecting portion  120  has two projections ( 121 , 122 ) which are inwardly bent, and an inner side surface which is an arc surface. 
     As illustrated in  FIG. 2 , a plurality of raised portions  101  is projected on a first surface of the main body  100 , and a plurality of grooves  102  suitable for the raised portion  101  is provided on a second surface of the main body  100 . 
     In this example, all the members including the mail body  100 , the male connecting portion  110  and the female connecting portion  120  of the toy brick are integrated by using material of ABS plastic, so as to enhance the consistency. 
     While a particular embodiment of the invention has been shown and described, it will be obvious to those skilled in the art that changes and modifications can be made without departing from the true spirit and scope of the invention. It should be understood that the embodiments of the present invention described above are illustrative only, and all the changes and modifications made by those skilled in the art are covered by the appended claims.