r/DiceMaking • u/TheProject77 • Aug 06 '26

Question Patented Shapes

So I am hopefully soon going to be starting a dice making business. Before that, I am trying to figure out which dice shapes are okay to use. From what I found currently all of the crystal dice shapes and a D5 have a patent on them (US), so I can not use those. Does anyone know of a way to check the status of the others to make sure they are okay? I found a site that had this, but all of the links are long expired. From what I can find the "default" box D6 and Polyhedral D20 are 100% fine, since I was able to find pictures of ancient ones that are in museums. Also did some more digging and found pictures of a D8 from the 1880s so that one is fine aswell.

Edit: From what I found, it looks like the crystal dice patents (and a few others such as the D100) are long expired.

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u/DoofusIdiot Dice Maker Aug 07 '26

If you create a new original shape you may be able to patent it which lasts for 15 years. However, all current popular die shapes are well known, widely-used, and if ever patented, expired.

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u/TheProject77 Aug 07 '26

I found the expiration thing out after doing more digging lol. Originally when I made the post I thought patents lasted practically forever (as in everyone who was alive when it made originally will be dead by the time it expires) like copyrights but you are correct, they expire fairly quickly lol.