Universal puzzle piece with customizable surface

Abstract

A universally shaped puzzle piece is provided that may mate with any side of a puzzle piece having the same universal shape. Instead of placing a portion of an overall puzzle image on the universally shaped puzzle piece, indicia related to a theme are placed on one side. The other side of the puzzle piece may be customizable to a user such that an infinite number of the universally shaped puzzle pieces may be customized and fit together to form a puzzle with a unique image. Thus, puzzle pieces may be distributed to individuals at a public event so that a puzzle is created that represents the overall theme of the event.

Description

CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION[0001]This application claims the benefit of U.S. application Ser. No. 10 / 697,753, filed Oct. 29, 2003, the disclosure of which is incorporated by reference herein in its entirety.BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION[0002]This invention relates to a customizable puzzle piece. More particularly, this invention relates to a puzzle piece that provides utility to a user even when the puzzle piece is packaged by itself and does not include a portion of an overall puzzle image.[0003]Puzzle pieces are well known in the art. Traditional puzzle pieces provide utility by way of a game. More particularly, a traditional puzzle is made up of puzzle pieces that each have, on one surface, one portion of an overall puzzle image. In this manner, a user is challenged to put the pieces of the puzzle (i.e., the individual portions of the overall puzzle image) together in order to form the overall puzzle image. To increase the complexity of the challenge, the pieces of a puz...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0006]It is an object of the present invention to provide a puzzle piece that does not include a portion of an overall puzzle image, but that still provides utility to a user. More particularly, it is an object of the present invention to provide a puzzle piece with at least one surface that may be customized by a user.

[0009]The puzzle pieces of the present invention may be useful at an event having a theme. For example, universal and customizable puzzle pieces of the present invention may be distributed to participants of a rally or other public event. One surface of the puzzle piece may be operable to be customized by a user while the reverse side may include indicia representative of the theme of the rally or other public event. In order to allow a user to customize thoroughly the puzzle piece, the size of the puzzle piece may have a large dimension (e.g., one square-foot). Accordingly, each participant of the rally or other public event may configure a puzzle piece and, at some point, put his or her puzzle piece together with others to form a unique puzzle representative of the theme. Due to the universal shape of the puzzle pieces, the puzzle would not have any defined borders and would, at any side, be operable to accept additional universal puzzle pieces having the same universal shape. Therefore, at any time, a new user may customize a puzzle piece and easily attach the customized puzzle piece to the already existing puzzle.

Problems solved by technology

However, such traditional puzzle pieces are deficient because they do not provide a stand-alone utility to a user.

Once the size of a traditional puzzle piece increases beyond a particular size (e.g., to the size of a traditional puzzle), the traditional puzzle piece loses utility with respect to a single user.

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