Special receptacle or package – Shock protection type – Inflated retainer
Reexamination Certificate
2000-05-10
2001-03-20
Foster, Jim (Department: 3728)
Special receptacle or package
Shock protection type
Inflated retainer
C206S523000, C206S586000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06202848
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to a protector for the corners of objects which are generally parallelepipedal, which protector is nevertheless collapsible to lie flat.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Corner protectors for parallelepipedal materials such as boxes and the like are known, which are fitted to the shape of the corner to be protected and hence easily slip over that corner.
Such corner protectors offer excellent protection from potentially damaging forces applied in any direction to the material of the corner. However, such corner protectors are difficult to manufacture and assemble, and, because they match the bulk of the corner to be protected, and hence are bulky and difficult to store.
OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
It is accordingly an object of the present invention to provide a corner protector for parallelepipedal material, which can be stored in a flattened condition in which it occupies relatively little space, but which can be easily erected to match the shape of a corner to be protected.
It is another object of the present invention to provide such a corner protector, which, when flattened, can have either two or four thicknesses of material and which, when erected, can have either one or two thicknesses of material, thereby to provide more or less protection from impact.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide such corner protectors, which can be sold in rolls of strip of any length which can be torn off one by one from such a strip.
Finally, it is an object of the present invention to provide such a corner protector, which is simple and inexpensive to manufacture from a minimum of material.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention is the discovery that the objects of the invention, recited above, can be achieved by providing a corner protector formed from two superposed sheets of protective material, with seams or fold lines along two edges that join at an angle of 135°, any other side or sides of the superposed sheets being open.
When the corner protector is erected, one seam extends along an edge of the object to be protected and the other seam or fold line lies flat in the plane of a major face of the protected object and at a 45° angle from two protected edges of the protected object.
In this way, a corner protector can be simply and quickly and easily formed, by folding or seaming a flat material with cushioning properties to provide a generally quadrilateral envelope with at least one side open and an obtuse apex opposite that open side or sides.
When the corner protector is erected from its flattened condition, by bringing the two seams toward each other until they are at right angles to each other, there is naturally formed a corner protector which has substantially the same shape as the corner to be protected. In this erected condition, one seam of the protector extends diagonally across one side of the erected protector whilst the other seam separates the other two sides of the erected protector, which other two sides are disposed at a right angle to each other and to the first-mentioned side bearing the diagonally extending seam. A three-sided erected protector is thus provided, all sides of which are at right angles to each other.
It is preferred th at, opposite the two joined seams that meet at an angle of 135°, there are two open sides disposed one at a right angle to its adjacent seam and the other at an angle of 45° to its adjacent seam, the two open sides being disposed at 90° to each other and being straight, with one open side parallel to a closed or seamed side or edge of the protector, the two parallel sides of the protector being separated by an open side which is perpendicular to both of the parallel sides.
The corner protector described above, when flattened, is of two thicknesses but when erected is of a single thickness.
In another embodiment, a corner protector with four thicknesses when flattened and two thicknesses when erected can be provided, by providing a device which is effectively the enantiomer of the first-mentioned device, which is to say that one half of this latter device is the mirror image of the other half. The resulting object is five sided, two of the sides being parallel and meeting two other sides at angles of 135°, those other s ides meeting each other at a right angled apex, the side opposite the apex being open and the other four sides being closed. When this latter device is partially everted, that is, turned inside out, with one half inserted into the other half, a device which overall resembles the first-mentioned embodiment is produced, but which has twice as many thicknesses.
A strip of devices according to the first embodiment can be provided, in which the diagonal sides abut and are separably joined to each other and in which the open sides abut and are separably joined to each other, which is to say that the devices are alternately reversed in the strip, so that they may easily be torn off from, say, a roll of the strip. This is both a convenient packaging and a convenient dispensing arrangement for the devices.
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Hendrix Stanley
Tindoll Avalon
Tindoll Brian P.
Tindoll J. Scott
Foster Jim
Manufacturer's Equipment & Supply Company, Inc.
Young & Thompson
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