Buckles – buttons – clasps – etc. – Zipper or required component thereof
Reexamination Certificate
2002-11-15
2004-12-07
Sandy, Robert J. (Department: 3677)
Buckles, buttons, clasps, etc.
Zipper or required component thereof
C024S306000, C024S442000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06826807
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a fastener having a structure which helps to distinguish whether a fastener such as a slide fastener, a surface fastener and a snap fastener is genuine or false.
2. Description of the Related Art
The fastener includes a slide fastener, a surface fastener, a snap fastener and the like, which are widely used to fix mating members detachably in various kinds of clothes, small articles such as bags, and large structures such as tents and pavilions. A large number of imitation fasteners having an equal brand indication have been produced and marketed at cheaper prices, because the fastener is versatile and its demand is high. Part of the imitation fasteners are attached to various kinds of products such as clothes and those products having the imitation fastener are often dealt with in distribution channels of the products.
As processing technology and manufacturing technology for fabric products advance and quality of raw material intensifies, the imitation product comes to closely resemble the genuine product, and the imitation product cannot be easily identified from the genuine product in many cases. As a result, a large number of imitation products are dealt with and sold through the same distribution channel without being identified from the genuine products, so that the share of the genuine products in the market drops, and manufacturers of the genuine products are threatened seriously.
Currently, the manufacturers have made efforts to distinguish genuine products from imitation products by marking their brand marks in the slider portion of the slide fastener or in peripheral portions of the snap fastener or by weaving their brand marks into part of the tape constituting the fastener. Moreover, they have requested national governments to regulate such imitation products.
Despite these efforts and activities, the number of imitation products does not decrease and manufacturers of the imitation products have produced imitation products resembling the genuine products more closely by using the brand names without any permission and marking them thereon.
As means for distinguishing the genuine product from the imitation product, Japanese Patent Application Laid-Open No. 13-211913, for example, has disclosed a slide fastener which can be identified from the imitation product. According to the slide fastener disclosed in this publication, a filament yarn, which is formed by mixing inorganic fluorescent material into high polymer raw material and fusing and spinning said raw material, is employed as an identification yarn and this identification yarn is woven in a cloth tape as a warp yarn when the cloth tape of this slide fastener is woven. Although this identification yarn does not emit light against irradiation of sunlight or fluorescent light, the fluorescent material in the identification yarn emits light if excitation light of 254 nm or 365 nm, which is the wavelength of black light, is applied to the slide fastener. The genuine product can be distinguished from the imitation product by weaving this identification yarn into the genuine slide fastener as its warp yarn.
However, the slide fastener described in the same publication requires black light belonging to ultraviolet as a light source for making inorganic luminescent substance emit light. Moreover, ultraviolet rays need to be irradiated all over the slide fastener in order to detect existence of the identification yarn, because the position of the identification yarn in the slide fastener is not specified. Ultraviolet rays are said to be a factor of skin cancer, thus exposure to ultraviolet rays for a long time is harmful for the health even if it is for inspection for discriminating between the genuine and imitation products, and the working environment is deteriorated. Furthermore, the identification yarn may emit light under the sunlight because it contains a great deal of ultraviolet rays, so that the manufacturers of the imitation products recognize existence of the identification yarn.
Moreover, when a dye with a fluorescent color is used for dyeing the tape, the entire tape reacts to ultraviolet rays when ultraviolet rays are irradiated to the tape. Therefore, a detecting means substituting for ultraviolet rays is demanded.
An object of the present invention is to prevent reaction of the entire tape to irradiated ultraviolet rays and provide a fastener which can be distinguished from a closely imitated product without using ultraviolet rays which harm the human health.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the present invention, at least one identification yarn is disposed at no fewer than one specified position in a tape composing a genuine fastener, so that the identification yarn can be detected when the tape is irradiated with infrared ray of a specific wavelength, though existence of the identification yarn cannot be recognized in an ordinary state such as under visible light.
That is, the basic structure of the present invention is a fastener such as a slide fastener, a surface fastener, or a snap fastener, which comprises said identification yarn for distinguishing a genuine fastener from a false one by irradiating at least a specified part of a tape composing said fastener with infrared rays with a specific wavelength.
In the tape composing the genuine slide fastener such as the slide fastener, surface fastener and snap fastener of the present invention, said identification yarn is used as part of the composing yarns of the knitted or woven tape. Said tape is a common composing member of all these fasteners and has an identifying portion. Therefore, despite structural difference of each fastener, genuine fasteners can be distinguished from imitation ones accurately in all above-mentioned fasteners.
Substance having a spectral characteristic under irradiation with infrared ray of a specific wavelength, said characteristic different from under white light, or substance emitting infrared rays when irradiated with infrared rays is contained in said identification yarn. As a result, existence of the identification yarn can be detected easily through characteristic change of the substance contained in said identification yarn when infrared rays of a specific wavelength are irradiated.
When the tape constituting the slide fastener, surface fastener or snap fastener is dyed, for example, white, white fluorescent dye is generally used so as to make the white color clear. Thus, when said identification yarn which emits color when irradiated with ultraviolet rays is used, if the tape is dyed with the fluorescent dye, the tape itself emits color because the fluorescent dye contains substance which emits the color when irradiated with ultraviolet rays. Consequently, the identification yarn cannot be detected. However, according to the present invention, the substance which reacts not to irradiation of ultraviolet rays but to infrared rays of a specific wavelength is contained in said identification yarn. Thus, even if the tape is dyed with fluorescent dye, said identification yarn can be identified definitely.
Preferably, the tape is a woven tape whose component yarns are a plurality of warp and weft yarns. Said identification yarn is a warp yarn, and repeats a cycle of intersecting and running above one or two weft yarns and then intersecting and running below one or two weft yarns. If said identification yarn intersects and runs above or below three or more weft yarns, the identification yarn floats from a surface of the tape so as not to be fixed to the tape securely. Thus, the number of the weft yarns which said identification yarn intersects is preferably one or two.
The above-described structure can minimize the amount of the expensive identification yarn to be used. Thus, increase in production cost of the fastener by using expensive identification yarns as part of the component yarns of the tape can be held down. Further, because said identification yarn is fixed to the tape securely and the ratio of exposure of the identi
Berry Nigel
Inoue Teruo
Kusayama Masahiro
Terashima Hideki
Everest Intellectual Property Law Group
Leonard Michael S.
Sandy Robert J.
YKK Corporation
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