I am not ashamed to admit that I was very excited to get a Furby when they first came out. It was just the perfect mix of technology and creepiness. Of course, the novelty of the thing wore off quickly and I hid it under a beret in my room to keep it from waking. From time to time I would jostle the thing, for example while cleaning my room, and I would hear its voice from under the beret, “ME TOMO. ME WANT BLOOD.”
Anyway, here’s the Furby patent.
This is a strangely written patent. In some ways the level of detail is tremendous, while other parts read more like a product manual than a technical specification. One disappointment is that they didn’t give much detail on the toy’s “language learning” ability. I have always believed that this was just a timed process, where the toy gradually unlocked more English words as you played with it, but I was hoping to get some explicit confirmation.
But that’s not why you’re here. You want to see pictures of a naked Furby. All right, I’ll give you what you crave:
USP 6,149,490, FIG. 13
Patenting the odd, the impossible, and the unnerving 