Tools – Receptacle closure remover – Power- – vacuum- – or fluid pressure-operated
Reexamination Certificate
2000-10-12
2001-11-27
Hail, III, Joseph J. (Department: 3723)
Tools
Receptacle closure remover
Power-, vacuum-, or fluid pressure-operated
C081S003090
Reexamination Certificate
active
06321620
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention concerns a device, provided with electric motors, to automatically remove corks from bottles, as set forth in the main claim.
To be more exact, the invention refers to a device which allows to automatically remove from a bottle both the cork, usually made of cork, and also the protective cap, usually made of metal or plastic material, wherein all the different steps are carried out by means of electric motors.
The device according to the invention is suitable to be used in any premises, either public or private, and is particularly suitable to be installed in public premises such as restaurants, inns, pubs or similar, where there is a frequent need to open bottles.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
In the state of the art, to remove the cork from a bottle the main steps are as follows: first the metallic or plastic protective cap (if any) which covers the cork must be removed; a self-threading screw is then made to penetrate into the cork until the thread has obtained a sufficient grip on the cork; the cork is then removed from the bottle, with a prevalently axial movement, with the help of one or more levers associated with one or more handles.
There are many corkscrews on the market which allow to carry out the above steps either manually or semi-automatically.
The most commonly used corkscrews are those operated manually; among them there is PCT N
o
WO-A-92/04273, of which the present Applicant is the Proprietor. This document discloses a corkscrew provided with a mechanism which allows to cut the protective cap when the screw is screwed into the cork, and then remove the part of the cap which has been cut together with the cork itself. This mechanism comprises a plurality of cutter wheels which are made to adhere to the cap by means of a system of levers activated by a sleeve which is made to slide axially with respect to the body of the corkscrew.
Even though it has solved a series of problems, this corkscrew still has the same disadvantages as all other manual corkscrews known to the art, that is, that all the operations have to be carried out by hand, with a considerable waste of time and energy on the part of the users, especially if they are restaurateurs or bartenders, or manage bars, pubs, inns or similar public premises, where such opening operations are frequently required.
There is also, in the state of the art, a device to remove corks wherein the screw, used to screw into the cork, is commanded by an electric motor. In this device the screw is laid on the upper part of the cork, the motor is fed electrically, so that the screw can turn and penetrate inside the cork, after which the motor is stopped. The device is then distanced from the bottle, until the cork has been removed. In this device, as the screw is not controlled in its travel, it normally penetrates the cork and completely perforates it, exiting through the inner end, with the disadvantage that it very often makes little pieces of cork fall inside the bottle and therefore into the content thereof, wine or other liquid whatever it may be.
Obviously, this is unacceptable, especially when the content is a valuable wine which must be served and drunk without any impurities.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,372,054 discloses an apparatus for automatically extract a cork from a bottle, wherein a corkscrew is associated to a reversible electric motor which, with a clockwise rotation, completely penetrates the cork, passing throughout thereof. In this apparatus the bottle neck is insertable into a tubular housing in which a tubular shuttle is axially slidable and the shuttle includes a stop to limit the insertion depth of the bottle neck. The electric motor, with its rotation in a clockwise direction, firstly causes the bottle neck and the shuttle to be pulled towards the stop position within the tubular housing, while the corkscrew penetrates into the cork, and then, when the shuttle and bottle neck are stopped causes a further penetration of the corkscrew into the cork and the extraction of the cork from the bottle neck, due to the auger effect of the corkscrew. The cork is withdrawn almost completely from the bottle neck, until the cork strikes a sensor. By reversing the motor, the counterclockwise rotation of the corkscrew cause the push of the cork which does not rotate due to the presence of longitudinal ribs within the shuttle. This apparatus, even if allows to remove the cork almost completely from the bottle neck, has the drawback that the cork is always completed perforated by the corkscrew, so that little granulated parts of the same cork fall inside the bottle.
The present Applicant has devised and embodied this invention to overcome the shortcomings of the state of the art and to obtain further advantages.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The invention is set forth and characterised in the main claim, while the dependent claims describe other innovative characteristics of the main embodiment.
One purpose of the invention is to achieve a device to open a bottle, wherein it is easily possible to regulate the penetrative travel of the screw into the cork, so as to determine, in advance, before beginning the opening operation, how many millimetres the screw has to penetrate into the cork.
This allows to achieve two important and useful objectives: firstly to open the bottle only partly, and secondly to prevent the screw from completely perforating the cork.
The fact that it is possible to open the bottles only partly, keeping the corks partly inside the bottles, can be particularly useful when several bottles have to be prepared half-opened, for example before a banquet or a dinner with a large number of diners; in this case the bottles can be completely opened manually only when needed, at the last moment, in front of the diner himself, and in an extremely short time. This has considerable advantages both for hygiene and for the wine.
Another purpose of the invention is to achieve a device wherein all the different steps of opening the bottle are achieved automatically and quickly, without the user having to exert any physical force, either to tighten the screw into the cork or to remove the cork from the bottle, or to remove the cork from the screw.
A further purpose of the invention is to achieve a device to automatically remove the cork from a bottle and at the same time remove at least a portion of the protective cap which has previously been cut, again automatically.
In accordance with these purposes, the device to automatically remove the cork from a bottle comprises a screw suitable to be tightened into the cork and rotation means associated with the screw to make it selectively rotate and penetrate the cork. According to one characteristic of the invention, regulation means are associated with the screw to regulate its penetrative travel into the cork according to the length thereof, so that the cork can also be removed only partly from the bottle.
According to another characteristic, the penetrative travel of the screw into the cork is a few millimetres, advantageously between 6 and 12, less than the length of the cork.
According to another characteristic, a first electric motor is suitable to command the axial displacement of the screw and the regulation means comprise electric switching means associated with the electric motor to selectively command its start and stop.
According to a further characteristic, the rotation means for the screw comprise a second electric motor.
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patent: 2649968 (1991-01-01), None
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Hail III Joseph J.
Shakeri Hadi
Stevens Davis Miller & Mosher LLP
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