Apparel – Body garments – Shirts
Reexamination Certificate
2000-04-15
2001-06-05
Hale, Gloria M. (Department: 3765)
Apparel
Body garments
Shirts
C002S069000, C002S400000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06240563
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
In general, textile garments and articles of apparel have similarly shaped front and rear panels that are superposed and seamed together along selected margins to enclose body parts.
These seams are sewn very close to the edges of the superposed panels to achieve good appearance and comfort when the garment is everted to place the seam inside.
Seams on textile fabrics are machine sewn with individual panels and/or accessory pieces being manually manipulated for sewing.
The substitution of adhesives for sewing to connect panels is generally not acceptable because wider seams would be required for strength and once the garment is everted, these wider bonded seams would be uncomfortable against the wearer's body, particularly along the shoulders and regions of the lower torso.
Another major disadvantage with bonded seams for apparel worn over the body was the lack of seam strength, it being noted that the adhesive in bonded seams would be subject to separation by tension forces rather than shear—not unlike pulling a piece of tape from a surface rather than trying to slide it off.
For apparel (accessories) worn outside the body and not subject to seam failure by stress, bonded adhesives could be used, as in the textile fabric necktie of Zimmerman U.S. Pat. No. 3,036,311.
Textile fabrics are made of natural or synthetic strands that are interwoven to form web lengths of woven fabric.
Using wet or dry forming methods, ‘non-woven’ fabrics are made of short length natural or synthetic fibers which are dispersed randomly in a continuous stream and bonded together with an agent to form a web of ‘non-woven’ fabric.
Various combinations of fiber material, length, thickness, and density of the dispersed fibers, type of bonding agent, and other factors can be selected to result in different non-woven fabric characteristics.
Because non-wovens do not invove making strands before being woven (formed), and because of much higher web formation production speeds for forming webs, non-wovens are significantly lower in cost.
In the 1960's, these new materials were adapted to disposable diapers as a pervious liner to allow passage of fluids to absorbent pads that were superposed on the impervious outer panel of the diaper.
During the late 1960's, different disposable products using non-wovens and plastics were described for hospital, medical, and special use products, including U.S. Pat. No. 3,221,341 of Hummel for bibs, U.S. Pat. No. 3,451,062 of Bradley for a disposable gown, U.S. Pat. No. 3,663,962 of Berger for panties, and U.S. Pat. No. 3,719,955 of Hrubecky for a disposable garment having a triangular folded rectangular torso section.
With low cost materials available, it waas important to develop methods for producing garments with adhesively bonded seams along margins that are parallel to, perperdicular to, and at angles to, the direction of product flow.
This invention describes products made with methods and apparatus of U.S. Pat. No. 5,795,433 which describes methods to place a shaped first panel segment having discreet flap extensions on a carrier cylinder, placing a similarly shaped second segment without flaps on top of the first segment, applying adhesive along selected margins of the second segment and folding the flaps over and around the borders of the second panel portion to create shaped garments during advancement of the superposed segment assembly along the carrier cylinder path.
The above described method is used to make seams on the garments illustrated and described in the specifications of this invention, it being understood that the seams thus produced have special advantages and attributes listed as objectives in the “Summary of the Invention” below.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
This application describes apparel with sloped shoulders for better fit and comfort, and includes garments with ‘legs’, overlapped front panel openings, and reinforced edges of the overlapped panels. Shirts with triangularly folded collars are also described.
An important object of this invention is to provide form fitting garments having front and rear panel segments connected by seams folded along margins that extend in any direction.
An advantage of this invention is to provide seams made on the outside of the garment to avoid interference with body parts.
Another advantage is to provide bonded seams wherein maximum adhesive shear strength is utilized.
Another object is to provide seams that avoid overlap at the junction of two non-parallel fold lines.
Yet another object of this invention is to provide bonded seams that have a uniform number of plies along the folded margins.
Another object is to provide garments with a front panel comprised of two partially overlapped half panels where the space between the overlapped portions defines a front opening, and opposing edges of the overlapped portlions of the opening are enclosed by a V-folded strip for reinforcing the edge.
Another object of the invention is to provide garments having two front half panels, each having a width equal to half the product plus a preselected amount equal to the overlap.
Another object of this invention is to provide garments having front panels with a shaped cutout in at least one panel for a neck opening.
An important object of the invention is to provide folded seams that enclose outwardly facing segment cut edges.
These and other objects and advantages of the invention will become more fully understood from the jfollowing detailed description of the invention when read in conjunction with the drawings.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5274852 (1994-01-01), Hogan
patent: 5499404 (1996-03-01), Marchiorello
patent: 5564123 (1996-10-01), Grassick
patent: 5603123 (1997-02-01), Chupa
patent: 5864890 (1999-02-01), Niedermeyer
patent: 6105171 (2000-08-01), Niedermeyer
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