(05-14-2024, 08:06 PM)DuckGWR Wrote: If you search specifically for "designs" and then search for トミー and then hit "other" and set it to ascending you can find some stuff starting in the late 1990s like the raising platform destination from the first Pokemon set or those little pullback guys.





https://www.j-platpat.inpit.go.jp/c1801/DE/JP-1998-034357/30/en









I really tried finding some specific patents that I even had the number for, but the patent search was returning wood-strengthening processes and textile patterns - the system overall seems hard to use and search, with limited options for refining your search, and even when I do think I have the information necessary to find something I never seem to be able to.

I do not know when exactly it happened (their website says they started in the 50s), but seemingly independently a medial and lab equipment company has/does operate under the Tomy, Tomy Kogyo, and Tomy Seiko names, all names our Tomy has also used. Their current logo is even similar to our Tomy's.