Show HN: Retro Patents – Tech patents turned into art
retropatents.com
Show HN: Retro Patents – Tech patents turned into art
1–10 of 48 posts
Re: Show HN: Retro Patents – Tech patents turned into art
#2Happy Friday!
I'm the co-founder of Retro Patents and we're super proud to bring the site to the HN community.
Last year, we were travelling in Europe and we came across a boutique print shop that had a Harley Davidson motorcycle patent in the window. We really liked the minimalist look to it and remembered how we'd used early product prototypes for motivation in the past. There's nothing more inspiring than seeing a world beating product stripped down to its core.
So we started the website you see today to help inspire others to go out and create magic. The prints also look really good as wall art ;)
There's a 15% discount for the HN community if you use the code (HACKER).
P.s. Max Levchin (PayPal founder) bought his own print and shared it on Twitter earlier this week - it was a great moment !
Re: Show HN: Retro Patents – Tech patents turned into art
#3These look awesome - I just ordered the Google PageRank patent! I literally want to hang every one of these in the office. My second favourite has to be the Microchip patent filed by Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor. A close third would be the IBM patent filed by Arthur Dickinson. Really great job with these overall - I'll be ordering some more for birthday presents
Re: Show HN: Retro Patents – Tech patents turned into art
#4These look awesome - I just ordered the Google PageRank patent! I literally want to hang every one of these in the office. My second favourite has to be the Microchip patent filed by Robert Noyce of Fairchild Semiconductor. A close third would be the IBM patent filed by Arthur Dickinson. Really great job with these overall - I'll be ordering some more for birthday presents
glad you like them and good choice :)
Re: Show HN: Retro Patents – Tech patents turned into art
#5These are great, and something I had wanted to do for my office but didn't get around to yet. May I suggest some actual game patents in your games section along with the hardware?
I don't recall which game off the top of my head, but I've seen some that resemble the gmail/pagerank ones with a sample outlined screenshot or flowchart.
Re: Show HN: Retro Patents – Tech patents turned into art
#6I'd buy one of the Selectric typewriter for my dad if it were available!
Re: Show HN: Retro Patents – Tech patents turned into art
#7Very smart idea..and nice execution. Great job.
What techie wouldn't love one (or four as a nice matrix) of these?
Re: Show HN: Retro Patents – Tech patents turned into art
#8As far as I am aware Patent Documents are public domain, and not subject to copyright, so if someone wanted a printed patent poster they could grab the document and take it to any large format printer and have it printed there cheaper than it would cost to order from retropatents.com, and they could do this for any patent they were interested in, not just the limited selection available at your store.
Does Retro Patents add anything unique? Or in other words, why should I order from Retro Patents instead of doing what I mentioned in the first paragraph?
Re: Show HN: Retro Patents – Tech patents turned into art
#9As far as I am aware Patent Documents are public domain, and not subject to copyright, so if someone wanted a printed patent poster they could grab the document and take it to any large format printer and have it printed there cheaper than it would cost to order from retropatents.com, and they could do this for any patent they were interested in, not just the limited selection available at your store. Does Retro Pate…
You're right but we have spent a lot of time cleaning and tidying up the designs and formatting the final piece of art.
I'd also add that our final product is of the highest quality and most local print shops couldn't give you the same service.
Saying that there is an original patents page on the site for this purpose. We're happy if you're hanging patent art either way :)
Re: Show HN: Retro Patents – Tech patents turned into art
#10As far as I am aware Patent Documents are public domain, and not subject to copyright, so if someone wanted a printed patent poster they could grab the document and take it to any large format printer and have it printed there cheaper than it would cost to order from retropatents.com, and they could do this for any patent they were interested in, not just the limited selection available at your store. Does Retro Pate…
What, exactly, would you print? The whole patent? A drawing or diagram? Which one(s)? Without the context of a title and subtext?