On this day in 1949 Atwood M. Timpé was granted the patent for SHUTTLECOCK. U.S. Patent No. 2,485,420.
This invention relates to a shuttlecock generally termed a bird and used in the games of badminton, battledore, shuttlecock and the like, wherein the so-called bird is struck by rackets manipulated by the contending players of the game.
The present invention constitutes an improvement over the prior Patent No. 2,217,032, dated October 8, 1940, wherein it is disclosed a form of shuttlecock the cup-shaped base or body of which is composed of sponge rubber. However, while the prior invention possessed many advantages it was found that due to the extreme flexibility of the base, it allowed the cone, which consists of feathers, to open up to such a degree, when the bird is hit with a hard smash for what is known as a finish shot, that the bird is caused to slow up at the end of its flight thus giving an opponent too much time to retrieve the-bird before it hit the floor.
One of the principal objects of the present invention’is to overcome the foregoing objection without losing any of the advantages obtained from the use of a sponge rubber base.
