{
  "patent_number": "US 2089171",
  "country": "US",
  "title": "How the Frying Pan Guitar Created the Electric Guitar",
  "original_title": "Electrical stringed musical instrument",
  "summary": "George Beauchamp's 1937 patent for the first commercially successful electric guitar, which used a magnetic pickup to turn string vibrations into electrical signals.",
  "what_it_does": "The patent describes an electrical stringed instrument that captures the vibrations of metal strings using a magnetic pickup. This pickup consists of a coil of wire wrapped around a magnet, which creates a magnetic field. When the metal strings vibrate, they disturb this field, inducing an electrical current in the coil that can be amplified by an external speaker. This design allowed guitars to finally be heard clearly in loud big-band settings.",
  "what_it_does_not_cover": [
    "Does not cover acoustic guitars that rely solely on a hollow body for sound amplification.",
    "Does not cover modern digital modeling or MIDI-based guitar synthesis.",
    "Does not cover piezo-electric pickups that rely on physical pressure rather than magnetic induction."
  ],
  "filed": "1934-06-02",
  "granted": "1937-08-10",
  "expires": "1954-08-10",
  "status": "expired",
  "holder": "ELECTRO STRING INSTR CORP",
  "holder_url": "https://patentbrief.org/company/electro-string-instr-corp",
  "inventors": [
    {
      "name": "George D Beauchamp",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/inventor/george-d-beauchamp"
    }
  ],
  "times_cited": 24,
  "tags": [
    "consumer_electronics",
    "mechanical"
  ],
  "abstract": null,
  "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/2089171/electric-guitar-frying-pan",
  "markdown_url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/2089171/electric-guitar-frying-pan/md",
  "google_patents_url": "https://patents.google.com/patent/US2089171",
  "relatedPatents": [
    {
      "patentNumber": "1956350",
      "countryCode": "US",
      "title": "How Laurens Hammond Invented the Electric Organ",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/1956350/hammond-organ"
    },
    {
      "patentNumber": "2741146",
      "countryCode": "US",
      "title": "How Leo Fender's Tremolo Bridge Changes Guitar Pitch",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/2741146/fender-stratocaster-tremolo"
    },
    {
      "patentNumber": "1661058",
      "countryCode": "US",
      "title": "How the Theremin Makes Music Without Touching Anything",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/1661058/theremin-leon-theremin"
    },
    {
      "patentNumber": "259054",
      "countryCode": "US",
      "title": "Henry Seely's 1882 Electric Flatiron",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/259054/electric-iron-seely"
    },
    {
      "patentNumber": "3475623",
      "countryCode": "US",
      "title": "How Robert Moog Used Transistors to Shape Synthesizer Sounds",
      "url": "https://patentbrief.org/patent/us/3475623/moog-synthesizer-ladder-filter"
    }
  ]
}