Improvements in or relating to Advertising and such like Notices.
Year: 1893

page_text: Date of Application, 7th Nov., 1893
Complete Specification Left, 27th June, 1894-Accepted, 28th July, 1894
PROVISIONAL SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in or relating to Advertising and such like Notices.
I RICHARD WALSINGHAM WESTERN of 20 Bucklersbury in the City and
County of London, Civil Engineer, do hereby declare the nature of this invention
to be as follows:-
This invention relates to the production of written announcements trademarks or
signs, hereinafter called advertisements.
"
The advertisement according to this invention will in whole or in part, appear
to alter in colour when the beholder makes a certain change in his point of view.
Or instead of, or in addition to, the alteration of colour, the letters, legends, or
devices of the advertisement may be altered in whole or in part when the beholder
changes his point of view. Upon the alteration or alterations above described I
rely, in order to attract the attention of the public to the advertisement in question,
and to effect the alteration I avail myself of the phenominion of "total reflection
as exhibited by optical prisms and explained in text books on the subject of light.
The essential part of my invention is a piece of glass or other suitable transparent
substance bounded in front by a single plane surface and bounded behind by one or
more plane surfaces which in position are not parallel to the plane surface con-
stituting the front of the piece of glass or other substance. The words front and
behind as just used and as hereinafter used, apply to the piece of glass or other
substance when placed in the position it is intended to occupy as part of the
advertisement.
Close to the one or more plane surfaces which bound the piece of glass or other
substance behind, but not in absolute contact therewith, I place an opaque backing,
coloured or not coloured, on which backing may be the letters, legends, or devices,
constituting in whole or in part the advertisement to which it is desired to attract
the attention of the public.
When the piece of glass or other substance together with the backing described,
occupies its position as an advertisement or part of an advertisement; from certain
points of view the letters, legends, or devices or parts of these in juxtaposition with
a plane surface bounding the piece of glass behind, will be directly visible; from
certain other points of view these letters, legends, or devices situated behind the
same plane surface will not be visible, but owing to internal reflection, or as it is
called total reflection, taking place something else will be seen instead.
Dated this 7th day of November 1893.
F. W. GOLBY,
36, Chancery Lane, London, W.C., Patent Agent for the Applicant.
COMPLETE SPECIFICATION.
Improvements in or relating to Advertising and such like Notices.
I RICHARD WALSINGHAM WESTERN of 20 Bucklersbury in the City and
County of London Civil Engineer do hereby declare the nature of this invention
and in what manner the same is to be performed, to be particularly described and
ascertained in and by the following statement:—
This invention relates to the production of written announcements, trademarks
or signs, hereinafter called advertisements.

page_text: "
The advertisement according to this invention will in whole or in part appear to
alter in colour when the beholder makes a certain change in his point of view.
Or
instead of, or in addition to, the alteration of colour, the letters, legends, or
devices of the advertisement may be altered in whole or in part when the beholder
changes his point of view. Upon the alteration or alterations above described I
rely, in order to attract the attention of the public to the advertisement in question,
and to effect the alteration I avail myself of the phenomenon of "total reflection
as exhibited by optical prisms and explained in text books on the subject of light.
The essential part of my invention is a piece of glass or other suitable transparent
substance bounded in front by a single plane surface and bounded behind by one or
more plane surfaces which in position are not parallel to the plane surface con-
stituting the front of the piece of glass or other substance. The words front and
behind as just used and as hereinafter used, apply to the piece of glass or other
substance when placed in the position it is intended to occupy as part of the
advertisement.
Close to the one or more plane surfaces which bound the piece of glass or other
substance behind, but not in absolute contact therewith, I place an opaque backing,
.coloured or not coloured, on which backing may be the letters, legends, or devices,
constituting in whole or in part the advertisement to which it is desired to attract
the attention of the public.
When the piece of glass or other substance together with the backing described,
occupies its position as an advertisement or part of an advertisement; from certain
points of view the letters, legends, or devices or parts of these in juxtaposition with
a plane surface bounding the piece of glass behind, will be directly visible; from
certain other points of view these letters, legends, or devices situated behind the
same plane surface will not be visible, but owing to internal reflection, or as it is.
called, total reflection, taking place, something else will be seen instead.
In order that my invention and the manner of carrying it into practice may be
well understood I will now describe it with reference to the accompanying
drawings.
Figure 1 is a diagram representing a cross section of a piece of glass such as
hereinbefore described as constituting the essential part of my invention and the
juxtaposed opaque backing therefor. The piece of glass must be considered as
occupying its place in the advertisement. A. B. represents the plane surface
which forms the front of the piece of glass, and A. C & B. C the two plane
surfaces which constitute its posterior boundary. EFG represents the opaque
backing upon which is marked the letters, legends, or devices or parts of these
which are desired to make up or to enter into the advertisement. At the point
marked P in the figure, an observer looking towards the front A. B. of the
advertisement, will see the part E F of the backing, but on changing his position
to the point marked Q in the figure, and again looking towards the front Â B, he
will no longer see EF, but owing to internal reflection from the plane surface A. C.
he will see the part F. G of the backing.
Figure 2 is a view similar to Figure 1, of a differently shaped piece of glass. If
the part E F of the backing be coloured blue and the part F. G. be coloured red,
the observer at P looking towards the front A B will see nothing but blue, since
internal reflection taking place at the plane surface C B, the part FG of the
backing will be invisible and the part E F will be seen instead. Similarly and for
a like reason the observer at Q looking towards the front surface A B will see
nothing but red. Furthermore, if the angle at C is approximately a right angle,
then the observer at R looking towards A B will see neither blue nor red, since
internal reflection will take place from both the posterior surfaces AC and CB
producing the effect of a mirror.
Figure 3 is a view, similar to Figure 1, of another specimen piece of glass. A B is
the front surface and C. D. E. F. &c. the posterior surfaces, of which the alternate
surfaces are parallel. If the backing in juxtaposition with the parallel
surfaces C D, E F, G H &c, be coloured blue, and the backing in juxtaposition

page_text: with the oppositely disposed parallel surfaces D E, F G &c. be coloured red, then
on the observer changing his point of view from P to Q the same effects will be
produced as in the previous example. By the use of pieces of glass of the kind
shewn in Figure 3 à considerable reduction of weight is effected as compared with
the use of a number of pieces of glass such as shewn in Figure 2 arranged with
their front surfaces contiguous so as to form a continuous plane surface. If for
the purpose of further reducing the weight of glass or for other reasons, it is found
desirable, the pieces of glass may be made hollow and their interiors filled with
some other transparent material or with transparent liquid or jelly substance.
It will be obvious that for the purpose of forming advertising and such like
notices which present different appearances from different points of view the pieces
of glass and the opaque backing therefor such as herein described may be arranged
or disposed in a variety of ways.
Having now particularly described and ascertained the nature of my said inven-
tion and in what manner the same is to be performed, I declare that what I
claim is :-
1. Advertising and such like notices made up of any number of similar pieces of
glass or other suitable transparent material each bounded in front by a plane
surface and bounded behind by one or more plane surfaces which are not parallel to
the front surface, said front surface being fixed in the notice so as to be proximate
to the observer, and an opaque backing bearing the advertisement or parts thereof
or itself forming a part of the finished advertisement or other notice, said backing
being fixed in juxtaposition to the surface or surfaces remote from the observer
substantially as described and for the purpose stated.
2. For advertising and such like notices, the combination of pieces of glass or
other transparent material such as herein before described with an opaque backing
or backings bearing the advertisements or parts thereof substantially as and for the
purpose herein before set forth and illustrated by way of example in the
accompanying drawings.
Dated this 27th day of June 1894.
F. W. GOLBY,
36, Chancery Lane, W.C., Patent Agent for the Applicant