Miscellaneous
Besides the ball, the pitch, the players' kit and referee gear, explained in detail in the preceding chapters, there are numerous patent applications on technical developments in other areas concerning football or related to it: for example, the training equipment such as the classical pendulum header unit or "die Torwand" (the goal board, a target practice board), medical equipment and diagnostics (eg. lactate tests, doping tests), the stadium construction or the camera and transmission systems.
Figure 1a: Utility model document DE 1622485U describes one of the first examples of a goal board as a game for entertainment, here with three holes.
The goal board is a simple but particularly impressive example of the way that popularity can stimulate inventiveness. It is a wooden board in the form of a goal with several ball-size holes. It was used for target practice in training as early as in the 1950s. After the goal board had found its way into German television in the late 60s, (since then the studio guests have been proving their skills on every Saturday evening) it suddenly gained such popularity that patent applications of many new variants have been filed. Since 1968, more than 100 German patent and utility model applications on goal boards were received at the German Patent and Trade Mark Office. You can find some nice examples on this subject in the database.
Figure 1b: Example of the well-known goal board model with a hole in the top left corner and the bottom right corner (DE 6916047 U).
It would go beyond the scope of this presentation to explain all topics relating to football in such detail as the ball or the football shoes. For this reason we have compiled some current and typical patents on other topics under the heading "Documents" in the database. These examples are meant to give an idea of all the things relating to football that can be invented.
If you would like to find out more about these topics (or about other technological fields) visit the searchable patent database of the DPMA on the Internet. It contains all patent documents and utility model documents of the major patent offices.
