Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Three dimension imitation or 'treated' natural product – Flora
Reexamination Certificate
1999-09-24
2001-10-23
Canfield, Robert (Department: 3635)
Stock material or miscellaneous articles
Three dimension imitation or 'treated' natural product
Flora
C428S023000, C428S919000, C135S901000, C043S001000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06306471
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
The present invention broadly pertains to arborescent artifices used to conceal or mask the presence of humans.
Such devices are employed by sportsmen,photographers and other nature observers to avoid detection by wild life.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The art of human concealment has been practiced by game hunters since primeval times. It is likely that primitive hunters commonly employed native foliage, such as trees, shrubs, and brush, to create a screen which reduced the chance of their visual detection while lying in wait for easily alarmed quarry. Where the immediately available supply of foliage failed to produce necessary visual obscuration of the hunter, leafy branches and sprays could be gathered then transported to a promising hunting site for fashioning a crude, but effective blind from fresh foliage. This sort of hunting blind could have been fashioned to mimic so nearly the natural and undisturbed foliage found in and around the selected hunting site that, prior to the onslaught of the hunter, the blind itself, as well as the hunter, went unnoticed by approaching and passing game.
In modern times, much of the forest has been cleared for cities, farms and ranches or has been diverted to timber harvesting; and, the remainder that is suitable as habitat for wild game is either privately owned or its public use is managed by state or federal governmental agencies. Increasingly, private owners and governmental custodians of forests and brush lands prohibit cutting of live foliage by those permitted to enter such areas. Such prohibitions and regulations are intended to maintain the arboreal integrity and beauty of the forest; to preserve sufficient cover to protect and maintain a desired wildlife population; to prevent accumulations of dried out brush on the ground thereby reducing attendant fire hazards; and, to avoid degradation of wooded land used for grazing, timber production, and recreational purposes. Consequently, leafy brush freshly cut from live trees, shrubs or other native growth is seldom employed by hunters, photographers, naturalists, animal wardens or the like as a material for constructing natural-appearing artifices to mask their presence from prey or creatures they wish to photograph or otherwise observe in the wild.
Often times, lacking suitable natural cover yet prohibited from using severed foliage to erect a foliaged screen or blind, today's counterpart of the primitive hunters mentioned above have resorted to the placement of flexible sheets or panels of various camouflage materials over suitable supports to fashion enclosures which totally or partially surround and hide the user. Many patents have been previously issued for various enclosures of this kind, including: U.S. Pat. No. 5,010,909 to Cleveland, U.S. Pat. No. 5,613,512 to Bean, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,495 to Egnew et al.
Cleveland shows a rigid box-like enclosure comprising a rigid frame made of PVC tubing and having standing sides covered with flexible fabric.
The patented Bean blind is attached to a conventional tree stand and surrounds the stand structure and its occupant. Glass fiber rods are releasable secured to the seat frame along its sides and front and project upwardly to support upright camouflage panels.
The Egnew et al enclosure comprises-a collapsible skeletal frame made of a plurality of flexible, bow-shaped members having attached thereto a fabric covering. When erected, this tent-like structure has closed sides and a top which serve as a blind and shelter for one or more occupants.
Other prior art blinds of the enclosure type have rigid frames supporting flexible curtain walls The frame may be removably attached about a tree trunk with the frame and curtain looping about a hunter who is either seated in a stand or positioned on the ground at the base of the trunk.
A myriad of other blinds having rigid infrastructures which support one or more fabric panels to form an enclosure are widely available at sporting goods stores. This type of blind is also erected in the field by placing a panel of camouflage fabric over a frame fashioned of crude props such as a bush, a small tree or a fence.
Another category of commonly used concealment devices distinct from the human enclosures noted above is the frontal panel class exemplified by U.S. Pat. No. 4,332,266 to Wageley; U.S. Pat. No. 4,836,231 to Peterson; U.S. Pat. No. 4,838,525 to Snow et al; and, U.S. Pat. No. 5,214,872 to Buyalos.
The Snow et al patent depicts a basic upright, open sided protective shield made up of a plurality of flat corrugated panels hinged together to permit folding to a collapsed transport condition. When erected, ground penetrating support spikes maintain the shield in an upright orientation.
Wageley discloses a collapsible blind comprising an array of radially extending rods joined by an overlying semi-circular panel of camouflage netting or the like. A central upright rod is embedded in the ground and furnishes support for the remaining rods which fan out from the central rod to create a generally semi-circular, planar shield or barrier which is situated in front of a seated or crouching person.
Peterson shows a fan shaped planar structure similar to the Wageley folding blind; however, the rigid ribs of the Peterson device pivot about a common point for either collapsing or tensioning a sheet of flexible material attached to the ribs.
The Buyalos blind is essentially an adjustable umbrella device providing a standing curved plane behind which the user is screened from view.
Smaller planar shields are commonly attached to the limbs of hunting bows to conceal the bow and, to some extent, the archer as well. U.S. Pat. No. 4,817,579 to Mathias; U.S. Pat. No. 4,876,817 to Hill; and, U.S. Pat. No. 5,235,772 to Mendick disclose generally flat panels supported frontally of the bow on a suitable bracket. All of these panels comprise a rigid frame structure overlain by various flexible camouflage materials.
To enhance the stealthiness of both the enclosure type blinds and the upright frontal shields, their structural frames are sometimes covered with flexible panels to which are attached three dimensional artificial leaves thereby more or less emulating the appearance of natural foliage. Such leafy material is also commonly used to make camouflaged outerwear for users of the blinds just discussed.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,813,441 to Kepley depicts a blind attachment for camouflaging a hunter's tree seat wherein the attachment holds severed natural brush in an upright position along the front and sides of the seat structure. Due to the fact that foliage, once severed, will shortly lose its vital appearance and its leaves will begin to shrivel and discolor, such deteriorated foliage will become discernible against a background of living foliage. Moreover, significant leaf shrivelling and loss will eventually expose the hunter and his equipment unless the brush is refurbished periodically or is replaced entirely if successive uses of the seat are spaced by more than a short time. Depending on their freshness and diameter, branches of natural brush tend to be either springy or brittle and, therefore, limit a user's ability to bend such branches to alter the natural shape or opacity of such foliage. Kepley suggests that the user alter the quantity or type of cut brush to achieve such results. Of course, cutting foliage in sufficient quantities to be effective would alter the natural environment surrounding the hunting site; and, for that reason, would be insensitive to preservation ethics and might violate local restrictions and laws.
Blinds constructed in accordance with the teachings of the aforenoted patents and others presently available have some or all of the following structural and operational shortcomings:
1. In spite of the best efforts to camouflage fabric-over-frame blinds to achieve a totally natural appearance, none successfully approximates the appearance of the trunks, branches and leaves of a tree or shrub in its natural state. Because modern camouflaged blinds typically in
Leavy Patrick M.
Pitman David B.
Canfield Robert
Holloway Joseph W.
Port Midwest International, Inc.
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