Talk:Yale (company)

No article?

Really? There isn't an article already? These are everywhere... vlad§inger ^tlk 23:18, 20 May 2008 (UTC)

What happened to the original company?

The article talks about the founding, in USA, then goes on to discuss global expansion and starts to focus the UK Yale company, and how that was aquired by XYZ. What happened to the original US Yale? I think the whole of Yale now belongs to Assa, not just the UK subsidiary.

Rankersbo (talk) 12:11, 14 August 2019 (UTC)

So "they" got patents before "they" existed?

The history section begins:

In 1868, the business was established in Stamford, Connecticut, by Henry R. Towne and Linus Yale Jr., an inventor renowned for creating the pin tumbler lock. Initially known as Yale Lock Manufacturing Co., the company later adopted the name Yale & Towne, with its base in Newport, New York.[1]

Between 1843 and 1857, Yale secured eight patents, encompassing items like the pin tumbler safe lock, safe lock, bank lock, vault, safe door bolt, and padlock, registered with the U.S. Patent and Trademark Office.[1] Around 1876, they . . .

This leaves me completely confused. How did the company obtain patents before being established? Or is the "Yale" who got the patents Linus Yale by himself? But then "they" is used.
I was looking for information on the invention of the lock, but I really don't understand. Davecat4 (talk) 19:37, 6 May 2024 (UTC)

Merger proposal

The following discussion is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made in a new section. A summary of the conclusions reached follows.

To merge Yale Materials Handling Corporation to its current parent, rather than to this page; to improve the set of articles, perhaps with a diagram. Klbrain (talk) 11:36, 27 February 2023 (UTC)

---

I propose we merge the article for Yale Materials Handling Corporation into this one as they were once the same company. 208.127.190.114 (talk) 15:32, 14 May 2022 (UTC)

A better target would probably be Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, the current parent of Yale Materials Handling Corporation. Klbrain (talk) 11:25, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

With all these various mergers (company not article) and sales and spinoffs, it seems to become rather fragmented over time - which article is to contain the original which is now owned by someone else which is then owned by someone else? Is there any actual policy or guidance regarding this? I ask because I see that @Klbrain has experience in this area. What I see looking through these articles are these tangled webs:

• Yale (company) was founded in 1840 (although curiously the 'history' section begins by saying it was founded in 1868?)
• Yale & Towne Manufacturing, later Yale Materials Handling, was an offshoot of Yale (company), producing its first direct product in the 1920's
• North American Coal Corporation (NACCO) was founded in 1913 and acquired Yale Material Handling in 1985
• Hyster was founded in 1929 as the Willamette-Ersted Company, and was subsumed by NACCO in 1989
• Yale Materials Handling Corporation and the Hyster Company were combined to form Hyster-Yale Materials Handling, which was spun off from NACCO in 2012
• Yale (company) was sold to Assa Abloy in 2000.

My head is already beginning to hurt. We can't just lump them all (I realize I'm already out of scope with the merger proposal) under Yale (company) obviously because there are separate histories, and the combined companies share separate histories. I'm having trouble imagining any coherent way to make all these companies and their interrelationships clear. The next question becomes, do we even try? cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 19:30, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

@Anastrophe: thanks for that summary. Company mergers, splits and acquisition are often very difficult to follow. There's no hard and fast rule for how to handle this for companies; the questions of whether to have a separate page or not comes down to the general notability criteria and whether or not readers will be best served having all of the information in one place, or separately. They're subjective decisions, and one of the key reasons for having merge discussions like this. Part of the problem at the moment with this company and its subsidiaries is that some of the pages are too small with poor referencing, and there is also duplication of material that doesn't need to be there. Of the companies and subsidiaries you've listed above, I see pages for:

• Yale (company)
• Yale Materials Handling Corporation
• North American Coal Corporation
• Hyster
• Assa Abloy

Of these, the only really terrible page is the one around which this proposal is based, and I think that that's the only one we should merge. I think that either merging to Yale (company) (as initially proposed) or to Hyster-Yale Materials Handling (as a separate section; as I've recommended) would be fine and both would be consistent with common merge decisions. The reasons for such a merge are context, overlap and short text. Note that if the content differs (when doing a merge), go with the referenced claim and don't merge over contradictory unreferenced claims (like that 1940 early start date). Klbrain (talk) 21:26, 6 November 2022 (UTC)

Thanks very much for the clear explanation. Yes, I kind of figured it would come down to rationale as you've described. We almost need some sort of a tree structure to keep all of these clear. Hmm - maybe a graphic along those lines could be useful. I'm barely skilled at such an endeavor, but if I find a few spare hours to poke at it, I might come up with something... cheers. anastrophe, an editor he is. 00:31, 7 November 2022 (UTC)

The discussion above is closed. Please do not modify it. Subsequent comments should be made on the appropriate discussion page. No further edits should be made to this discussion.

  Y Merger complete. Klbrain (talk) 11:36, 27 February 2023 (UTC)