Wilcom Pty Ltd, "Tufting machine" (EP1674605A1)
Patent · not yet checked at the source
- Made by
- Mile (Joz) Jez, William Brian Wilson; Wilcom Pty Ltd (Australia)
- Date
- AU priority 23 Dec 2004; A1 published 28 Jun 2006; B1 granted 25 Jan 2012
- Place
- Australia (EP filing)
- Number
- EP1674605A1
- Themes
- Hand-tufting tools & the gun, Tools & equipment, Global diffusion of tufting
Cite this source
Research notes
This patent puts the hand tufting gun on a computer-guided gantry. It covers a single hollow-needle tufting head moved over the backing from vector design files, with a yarn cutter that switches between cut and loop pile. Its background is a useful history: it says tufting guns "may be controlled and guided manually by a human operator" and names earlier hand guns, Hartleb (DE2815801) and Scholz (US3968758/DE2356585). US counterpart: US7218987B2 (granted 15 May 2007). Austrian member: ATE522650T1. Wilcom (Sydney, best known for embroidery software) had earlier tufting-head patents, US5829372 and US5503092 (Wilcom Tufting Pty Ltd). Their background cites PCT/AU92/00401 (WO 93/03215), and there are Chinese (CN1046772C), Australian (AU1058695A) and Japanese (JPH09505361A) members. I saw those numbers but not their dates. Verified Oct 2026 by web search only. patents.google.com and Espacenet could not be opened from the sandbox, so I did not read the document itself. EP dates come from the EPO Global Patent Index; the inventors and assignee come from the US7218987B2 Google Patents record. Research note (Oct 2026): found through search results; the patent document itself wasn't opened. The Patent drawings job fetches the document from Google Patents; if drawings appear on this record, the number is confirmed.