Monthly Archives: January 2022

Throat care

  • January 27, 2022
#design

The other day, I bought Ryukakusan (powder type medicine for throat). I used to lick throat lozenges when my throat became dry and irritated, but I heard that this medicine was good for throat problems, I promptly tried it. Certainly, the throat feels more refreshing and comfortable than a throat lozenge. I would like to keep my throat healthy with this medicine, in addition to gargling this winter.

Ryukakusan

Since this throat medicine is a powder type, the product comes with a spoon to scoop the powder. The spoon has three holes so that the scooped powder can quickly fall into the mouth, and this design is registered as a design (Japanese Design Registration No. 1573114, Japanese Design Registration No. 1574669). (Sakuramochi)

Ryukakusan Spoon

Pokayoke; Ingenuity to prevent accidental mistakes

  • January 20, 2022
#patent #trademark #utility model

The TV programs I often watch include “0655” and “2355”. The content varies from day to day, but “Pokayoke” is sometimes introduced. “Pokayoke” is a mechanism or device installed in a production line, for example, in a factory to prevent work mistakes (from Wikipedia). “Pokayoke”, a solution to make people notice their mistakes and thus to prevent “Poka”, accidental, small mistakes, may be famous as one of the basic concepts of Toyota Production System. It seems to be sometimes called “Poka-Yoke” even outside Japan.

In the program, one “Pokayoke” was introduced. When cleaning the inside of a large tank, you will go inside with a deck brush, you can prevent forgetting to take out the deck brush by connecting a string to the deck brush and keeping the string out of the tank. With such a little ingenuity, you can prevent big mistakes.

If you search for “Pokayoke” on J-PlatPat, 34 patents and utility models and 10 trademarks will be found. Mistakes are common in any job, not just in the factory production line. I also want to do my daily work while devising with “Pokayoke”. (Syszo)

Pokayoke; Wikipedia:https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poka-yoke
E-Tele(NHK) 0655:https://www.nhk.jp/p/e0655/ (Japanese Only)
E-Tele(NHK) 2355:https://www.nhk.jp/p/e2355/ (Japanese Only)

Memories of first writing of the year: Japanese ink culture

  • January 12, 2022
#patent

This is swimmer.
In the calligraphy class I attended when I was little, at the occasion of first writing of the year, we used to make ink by rubbing solid inkstick on the inkstone instead of using commercially available ink.
It is often watery even after rubbing it many times, and I remember having a hard time because it did not have the ideal concentration and stickiness.
Every year when New Year time comes, I feel grateful for the convenience of the ink that can be used immediately after pouring it from the container into the inkstone.
The ink was patented in Japan in 1893.

Inkstick – Wikipedia