Severing by tearing or breaking – Breaking or tearing apparatus – Web restrainer
Reexamination Certificate
1999-05-04
2001-11-27
Peterson, Kenneth E. (Department: 3724)
Severing by tearing or breaking
Breaking or tearing apparatus
Web restrainer
C225S032000, C225S039000, C221S197000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06321965
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates devices for dispensing tickets. In particular the present invention relates to novel apparatus for dispensing individual strips which may, for example, be attached to articles to identify them, and may be located in desired settings, for housing and selectively releasing unique, pre-arranged stacked and scored articles which are especially suited for use as, for example, tagging devices for luggage, inter alia. No limitations of applications of the teachings of the present invention are implied by the descriptions of operation of preferred embodiments offered hereafter, which are merely illustrative.
AREA OF THE ART
Although the increased population and diminishing resource base is an issue most urban people are compelled to deal with daily, little improvement in methods for creating lines, or ordering those within them has been noted. Likewise, even as ticket-like articles must be dispensed everywhere from the Post Office to stadium-based sporting events, the technology continues to lag behind the ever-increasing need for aids for ‘queuing-up.’
Conventional ticket dispensers have never assumed a prominent role in luggage tagging because they are not convenient, efficient, or safe enough to function in the high traffic areas addressed by the teachings of the present invention. The same principles apply to related fields, as explained below.
By way of example, most travelers who frequent airports, sea-ports or train stations are all too familiar with the pitfalls of known luggage tagging methods. Owing to time constraints, those who need to create tags which identify themselves as owners of articles of luggage, often including address information penned on an expedited basis, have been subject to several longstanding problems until the advent of the instant teachings.
Prominent among these difficulties are the general availability of tagging articles to personalize and attach. Similarly lacking are convenience and placement of writing surfaces or analogous areas to help travelers to personalize their baggage with luggage tags. This lack of existing mechanisms to assist users to personalize tags and locate tags is exacerbated when harried travelers are forced to stand in line with limited time available for searching for such tags. As discussed below, solutions to each of these previously unsolved problems are addressed by the teachings of the present invention, as are numerous others in related fields of endeavor, by analogy from the instant examples.
Use of previously prepared luggage tags is constrained by a high loss rate for such articles. Likewise, in terms of aesthetics—or individual preferences for appearance—it is often desirable to have the clutter of such tags eliminated as soon as they are no longer needed. Similarly, the numerous articles and containers which accompany todays' travelers cannot be tagged until they are ready to travel, creating a strong need for an on-site source of readily attachable luggage tags.
Those needing to queue up, at the box office, for example, would be well served by a mechanism that was readily suited to, or perhaps previously existing in, the place where the line had to be formed. For this reason, as well as for the reasons developed more fully below, the existence of applicant's/assignee's own BELTRAC® public guidance system, along with its specialized stanchions, is strong evidence of the industrial efficacy of the instant teachings.
Likewise, according to a preferred embodiment discussed in detail below, the unique nature of the present invention which, among other things, combines a commercially successfull BELTRAC® public guidance system, having grooved and linked stanchions with a novel enhanced dispensing system for ticket-like articles, clearly addresses and overcomes the longstanding needs described above.
Similarly, applicants' alternate preferred embodiments, dual detent mechanisms, unique overlapping scores and incisions system for ticket-like articles, and rectangular or roller housing format contribute a host of heretofore undisclosed ways to address the problems which are outlined above.
DESCRIPTION OF THE PRIOR ART
Known apparatus, methods and systems lack the reliability, simple elegance and durability of the present invention as defined by the claims offered for consideration hereafter. A perusal of either of the two separate lines of prior art patents available urges strongly for the solutions employed according to the teachings of the present invention.
For example, among U.S. Pat. No. 5,294,034 issued Mar. 15, 1994 to Svensson, and assigned to TURN-O-MATIC AB of Sweden, shows the typical arrangement employed with known dispensing systems with a cumbersome casing and complex guiding mechanism for its feed path. The Svesnsson patent requires a pair of mutually opposed guide surfaces to track the strip of connected tickets through a convoluted series of bends and turns, which differentiates this disclosure from the teachings of the present invention.
Likewise, U.S. Pat. No. 5,695,107 issued Dec. 9, 1997 to Shoemaker, Jr. discloses an extremely elaborate set of drive rollers, pinch rollers and tension springs designed to move a strip of tickets along a feed path. This invention further requires the use of a removable central dividing portion to separate its strip into individual ticket pieces, which by itself distinguishes it from the teachings of the present invention. It is noteworthy that this disclosure highlights an additional aspect of the problems solved by the present invention, namely, how to create a continuous strip of connected ticket-like articles that can be readily separated to form individuated units.
The reliability and durability of the mechanically complex structures required by the prior art in general, and for these two patents in specific, differentiates both of these references, and the two respective lines of patents which they represent, from the teachings of the present invention. Accordingly, further discussion of these types of patents is omitted at this time because they merely serve to demonstrate the longstanding need for a compact, reliable and simply elegant solution to the longstanding problem of providing facile and effective on-site dispensing systems for ticket-like articles.
Likewise, attention is called to assignee Lavi Industries' (Valencia, Calif.) U.S. Pat. No. Des. 343,690 for a Crowd Control Belt Post, or Stanchion, which design, as mentioned above, has achieved considerable commercial success, as marketed under the trademark BELTRAC®, and found in most major airports. One aspect of the present invention combines a unique dispensing system with the patented article for the purpose of dispensing luggage tags to users at desired locations in a reliable manner. Having designed, installed, modified, and made safe such stanchions for airport use, combining the same with the below disclosed cartridge system to achieve the objects of the present invention has enabled the present inventors to implement the claims appended hereto, in one embodiment.
The ticket-like articles themselves constitute yet another unrequited need addressed by the instant teachings. Although known configurations for such types of luggage tags enable a user to insert a first end of a single piece article through a key-shaped hole located at a second end to form a tag, the tags themselves pose further challenges to harried travelers. For example, storing previously separated tagging articles requires constant monitoring and upkeep by third parties. Known baskets of such articles seem to become inconveniently emptied, and are subject to related problems. While existing tag configurations allow a folded resulting product to be rapidly attached to luggage, no prior art patents have been uncovered which provide a way to offer a continuous strip of such articles that could be made available to a user in, for example, an airport.
Either within or without a stanchion, the instant teachings provide a straight forward alternative to exis
Burns Clay A.
Chan Edwin
Dair Thomas
Kennedy Timothy J.
Lavi Gavriel
Choi Stephen
Lavi Industries
Peterson Kenneth E.
Pillsbury & Winthrop LLP
LandOfFree
Enhanced dispensing system for luggage tagging does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Enhanced dispensing system for luggage tagging, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Enhanced dispensing system for luggage tagging will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2608682