An Entertaining History of Skee-Ball IP

I was watching a video on YouTube recently posted by a man who owns an old fashioned arcade, dedicated to his vintage Skee-Ball games. As you might expect, it got me thinking about Skee-Ball IP. According to this man, it was introduced to the public nearly 100 years ago on the original boardwalk in Atlantic City. I wanted to find the first Skee-Ball patent, if possible.

Usually, I find it is easier to approach IP mysteries from the trademark angle, so I started by looking up Skee-Ball trademarks, of which there were many. I found the primary entity that holds marks for the game is Bay-Tek Entertainment. However, applying that to a patent search wasn't going to be simple, because they did not have any Skee-Ball patents I could find. 

A screenshot of the webpage that claims a 1908 patent

Upon visiting the Bay-Tek Entertainment website and the page dedicated to modern Skee-Ball machines, I found a claim that it was originally patented in 1908. That was a bit of a surprise, because I wasn't finding a lot of documentation prior to 1928 for Skee-Ball patents or trademarks. I returned to the trademark records, and looked more closely at the record of ownership.

First trademark reassignment

Two transfers have occurred since it was first trademarked in 1929 (filed in '28). The first owner was the Philadelphia Toboggan Company. Today, it's Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters, Inc., and it was historically a maker of carousels and really really old-fashioned roller coasters. Like wooden ones. Their about/history page claims they also made Skee-Ball machines, but sold it in 1985, which is accurate. However, that's the entirety of their website's Skee-Ball documentation.

Second trademark reassignment

Furthermore, I couldn't find any patents that belonged to the Philadelphia Toboggan company or named inventors found on their webpages prior to the 1920s. Keyword searches for Skee-Ball or various game descriptions weren't helping.

I emailed Bay-Tek Entertainment and asked if they could provide any documentation to back up their claim, but haven't received an answer. That isn't surprising, I imagine they have better things to do than research patents for their no-longer-patent-protected merchandise. 

So, loyal readers, I have to admit: I cheated and didn't find the original Skee-Ball patent using my amazing searching skills. Well, I did, just not directly. I mentioned Skee-Ball history to a generative AI app I'm testing, and it gave me the inventor's name. If you query Patent Public Search with "Joseph Fourestier Simpson", it returns US Patent 905,941, Game Apparatus. 

I really want to defend myself and claim that I wasn't trying to get the solution from the AI, but it's how I got it, so there's little point in protest. A stupid AI was useful. Ugh. If only I'd thought to look at Wikipedia first or something. 

Anyway, let us enjoy this patent for the original Skee-Ball, which was once built big enough to be more like bowling. 

Drawing of how it was meant to appear

We can also appreciate and enjoy the upgrades that were patented, like this one granted in 1931, US Patent 1,826,964.

Many Skee-Ball patents have been granted over the decades, yet the actual game has fundamentally changed very little. It's still a ramp connected to rings that ends in a bump. It just has more electronic bits and plastic pieces.