Apparel – Guard or protector – For wearer's head
Reexamination Certificate
1996-08-02
2001-04-24
Neas, Michael A. (Department: 3765)
Apparel
Guard or protector
For wearer's head
C002S410000, C264S510000, C264S271100, C264S132000, C264S134000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06219849
ABSTRACT:
TECHNICAL FIELD
This invention relates to protective headgear bearing embedded distinguishable marking, such as alphanumeric data, color patterns, and stylized designs, for ready identification to headgear viewers.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Nearly everyone must be aware that various kinds of people wear protective headgear, examples being bicycle and motorcycle riders, construction workers, firemen, mine workers, players of so-called contact sports, race drivers, soldiers, and members of other groups, identifiable by their type of clothing or markings attached thereto.
A disadvantage of much headgear marking is lack of permanence, inasmuch as the wearers' own activities often tend to fade, degrade, or remove the identifying markings, partially if not completely.
Attempts have been made from time to time to ameliorate—if not to eliminate entirely—such degradation of headgear marking, and to encourage improved design, manufacture, and marking of the headgear. Examples identified in U.S. patents include multilayered headgear by Cleveland, 3,437,631; Rodell, 3,445,680; Gesselin, 4,466,138; Tung, 3,885,246; Johnson, 3,946,441; Luna 4,008,949; Mitchell, 4,599,752; and Gentes, 4,993,082. Johnson, Rodell, and Mitchell disclose two-piece separable headgear; Gesselin teaches an inseparable two-piece; Cleveland teaches pigmentation of headgear compositions; Tung, Luna, and Gentes illustrate layering of reflective materials in headgear.
Despite improvements contributed by those inventors or others, headgear tends to carry no marking, or only relatively uninformative all-over marking, or informative marking susceptible to damage/loss.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A primary object of the present invention is to provide protective headgear, distinctive by bearing customized alphanumeric and/or design marking, made up of informative and/or decorative patterning.
Another object of this invention is to embed a distinguishable marking into the headgear so that even substantial surface damage to the headgear will be unlikely to impair such marking.
A further object of the invention is to distinguish wearers of headgear, as by company affiliations, sports teams, and/or emergency crews, for example, clearly enough to avoid mistaking members of one such group for members of another such group, or even to distinguish each member from every other member of the same group.
Yet another object of this invention is to attain the foregoing objects without sacrificing, or while actually enhancing, safety or security aspects provided by such protective headgear.
A still further object of the invention is to accomplish the foregoing objects with little or no increase in cost, or with actual reduction in headgear costs.
In general, the objects of the present invention are attained, in composite protective headgear, by first providing a thin sheet of durable plastic composition carrying at one of its faces (perhaps impregnated with) decorative and preferably informative visible patterning, forming such sheet into headgear shape, and covering a face of the formed sheet with a preferably thicker layer of solidifiable plastic composition, solidifying that composition in place, and thus forming a more durable composite headgear structure, with patterning visible through an overlying translucent layer to outside observers.
More particularly, converting the patterned sheet into headgear shape is preferably accomplished by thermo-forming, and the covering of one of its faces with the thick solidifiable layer preferably is accomplished by injection molding. Alternatively, the components might be layered together and then be formed into headgear shape in a single step, as by suitable molding, perhaps not so practicable in the present state of the art—although it might become preferable.
If the patterned sheet is to be at the outside of the headgear (as is acceptable for all except the roughest environments), the sheet is desirably translucent and carries the patterning on its concave face, to be covered by the solidifiable plastic composition, which is opaque (preferably white) to set off the pattern visually.
If the headgear is to be subjected to excessive abrasion, the patterned sheet is preferably located at the inside of the headgear, is preferably opaque, with patterning on—possibly impregnating—its own convex surface, and the solidifiable outside layer is desirably translucent to render the patterning visible to an outside observer.
A headgear of this invention is characterizable as a unitary laminate, having been formed into generally hemispherical headgear shape, and including distinctive patterning readily visible to those exterior observers viewing its convex outer surface.
Preferably, such distinctive patterning is intentionally distorted initially (when flat), to become substantially undistorted to a viewer in its resulting generally hemispherical headgear shape.
Other objects of this invention, together with means and methods for attaining the various objects, will become apparent from the following description and the accompanying diagrams presented by way of example rather than limitation of embodiments of this invention.
REFERENCES:
patent: 5376318 (1994-12-01), Ho
patent: 5609802 (1997-03-01), Jeng
patent: 6038704 (2000-03-01), Crescentini
McClure Charles A.
Neas Michael A.
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