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History
In 1971, brothers Fran and Bryce Patch started their own commercial printing company in Beloit, Wisconsin.
They built their business by printing products for other companies, including Trivial Pursuit
game boards and Cabbage Patch doll sticker books.
Fran and Bryce took a step forward in 1985 to form Patch Products, Inc., and started printing their own
products. They broke into the children’s puzzle market by introducing a line of
PuzzlePatch® puzzles, while continuing to print paper products for
others. These puzzles grew in popularity and availability through national distribution, and built the
foundation on which Patch has grown.
Success with the puzzle line prompted Patch to take on the competitive board game market in 1992 by obtaining the license
to the board game TriBond®. Through the TriBond game's acclaim and the Puzzle Patch puzzles'
continuing popularity, Patch began building its line of family-friendly board games and introduced the popular games
Blurt!® and Mad Gab®. Those three brands -
Tribond, Blurt! and Mad Gab - helped Patch penetrate the retail marketplace and position the company as a
key player in the game industry. In 2004, Patch sold the brand rights for those three games so it could concentrate on
building its other brands and put its energy into creating new family games. The company has achieved success with many of
its newer games, including Buzzword®, Such & Such®, What's Yours Like?®, Jeff Foxworthy
You Might Be a Redneck If...™ Game, Malarky®, Swap!®, Toss Up!®, ShakeDown™, and Giant Spoons.
Patch expanded in 1998 into the indoor/outdoor toy market by acquiring Just Kid’n™, a foam ball
company. With its line of Zoam® foam footballs,
basketballs and soccer balls as a foundation, Patch created its innovative
Light Tracker® line featuring foam balls with motion-activated lights.
The line eventually was expanded to include collegiate-licensed foam balls and mini hoopball sets. Today, Patch has
licenses with about 50 colleges.
In 2000, Patch successfully entered the world of brand licensing by securing the game rights to several pop
music groups including *NSYNC, Backstreet® Boys™ and
98 Degrees. Patch also has licensed the rights for such high-profile brands as Jeff Foxworthy™ You Might Be a Redneck
If...™, Chase for the NASCAR NEXTEL Cup™, McDonald's® and Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer®.
Also in the early 2000s, Patch added to its line of family entertainment products by entering the card game and floor puzzle
markets. The company launched a variety of Big Deal® card games, introduced a line of colorful Great Big Sneaky
Puzzles® and
developed its Imperial® line of playing cards, poker chips and dice. Other new products included Tiny Tins™ children's games,
Choo Choo Training® sticker coloring and activity books, Games on the Go!™ travel games, FunnyBugs™ games and flash cards, and
educational puzzles including Peek-a-Boo Puzzles™, Puzzle Pairs™, A to Z Puzzles™ and Fish Addition Puzzles™.
For more than two decades, Patch Products has continued to build on its early success. Its product lines of games and
puzzles have grown with the addition of several new games, including Can-Do Roo™, Roll-It Tic-Tac-Toe™, ShakeDown™, Domination™,
Go Wacky!®, Pacardy®, etc.®, Hearts & Spades™ and Road Trip QuizWit™.
Today, Patch is a leading manufacturer and marketer of family entertainment products. Board games, card games, puzzles and
collegiate-licensed foam sports toys are its core products.
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Mission
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