Most little Lego cars carry a 'patent pending' notice underneath. The Lego company was granted a great many patents during decades of existence, but this reference is to patent applications for improvements particular to these cars.
Once a patent is granted, the patent number(s) tend to be included in the markings of a toy. But as soon as a patent has been applied for, a 'patent pending' message is already an effective deterrent to would-be copycat competitors.
Lego's German subsidiary (which had the little cars designed and manufactured) was granted two patents for particular features to improve the construction of toy cars. Patents are granted for specific (engineering) improvements that can be applied to any similar product (toy cars in this case), as opposed to registered designs which deal with what a toy actually looks like.
The first one is German patent 1134617, shown below. The application was made on 9 March 1958 and the patent was granted on 9 August 1962. It has three pages of text and one page with drawings.
The text follows the standard outline of describing the state of the art including existing problems, followed by a description of the invention that solves those problems, to then end with a number of claims. These are the particular features for which the patent application is made. A few references to other patents are included at the end to illustrate the state of the art (these will have been selected to show as much difference as possible to the new invention, making the latter seem all the more innovative). The drawings on the final page then illustrate the details featured in the description.
Although the toy car's construction is described in detail, the actual patent is only concerned with the transparent window insert. In that the insert stands on the bottom of the car; is kept in place between the top and bottom of the car (without glue); by various shapes incorporated in the bottom of the car; the insert gripping same.
What should be realised is that this was ground-breaking stuff at the time. There were little or no diecast toy cars with plastic windows available back then. Not having to glue parts together (incl waiting for that glue to set) was a major advantage in production as well.
Most little Lego passenger cars are indeed constructed as is shown in the patent drawings. (The long VW Beetle and Mercedes convertible are not as they're glued together.)
Lego sells a
nice poster showing the drawings page of their copy of the patent document. The entire document can be found at the European Patent Office
here.
Whereas protection was only sought in Germany with the first patent, a second followed suit that would eventually be granted in Germany, Britain, Switzerland and France (there being no such thing as a pan-European patent office at the time).
As the drawings also make clear, this patent extends the first one with additional features such as the 'feet' of the insert being angled and gripping into special slots in the bottom part of the car. As is highlighted by the circles on the drawing, the bottom edges of windscreen and rear window then clip into the body to keep it in place.
Patent drawings tend to be as generic as possible, but the shape of the car above shows quite a similarity to the Ford Taunus 17M model. The inside of that little car is exactly as shown on the patent drawing.
The German application was submitted 7 August 1962 and granted 20 November 1969 as patent number
1478505.
The British application was submitted 7 August 1962 and granted 2 September 1964 as patent number
968262.
The French application was submitted 7 August 1963 (could that year be a typo?) and granted 1 February 1965 as patent number
1391711.
(The Swiss patent reference found with the German patent turns out to be for something entirely different so must be erroneous)
Click on the numbers to see the documents on the EU patent site. In terms of content the documents are identical, except that the British patent agent managed to get in an extra claim for the toy vehicle in general, as described and illustrated.
Interesting to see the time it took the patent officials in various countries to decide on the originality of the invention. By the time the German patent was granted, the little toy cars were justabout phased out of the Lego range. Which would also explain why they've always been marked as 'patent pending' because indeed that turns out to be the case.
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The text follows the standard outline of describing the state of the art including existing problems, followed by a description of the invention that solves those problems, to then end with a number of claims. These are the particular features for which the patent application is made. A few references to other patents are included at the end to illustrate the state of the art (these will have been selected to show as much difference as possible to the new invention, making the latter seem all the more innovative). The drawings on the final page then illustrate the details featured in the description.
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