Illumination – With plant-like ornament or wreath – Tree
Reexamination Certificate
1999-11-02
2001-05-01
Husar, Stephen (Department: 2875)
Illumination
With plant-like ornament or wreath
Tree
C362S249070, C362S259000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06224231
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to the field of decorative illumination for trees and the like and more particularly to a new and improved integrated lighting system to permit the rapid, convenient and economical placement of lights and other accessories onto trees and other suitably sized objects.
DESCRIPTION OF PRIOR ART
The practice of illuminating small conifers inside the home during the Christmas season is one that extends from before the time of electrification. Beginning as a regional expression of religious faith, the practice has grown in popularity to the extent that it is now perceived as a secular holiday emulated widely across the globe. As such, the festive illumination of conifers in the home has been extended to other holidays and to public settings such as stores, government buildings, schools, parks, malls, hotels, and stores, as well as in commercial settings such as corporate centers, factories and the alike. The trees can either be indoors or out, artificial or real, and can reach several stories in height.
Trees that are the subject of such public and commercial festive illumination are generally of large girth and height, thus complicating the normal procedure of providing illumination by horizontally wrapping lights strings round the tree. Usually the light string placement procedure in such instances requires a significant amount of time, labor and materials.
Generally, a crew of workers is dispatched to lift and horizontally wrap light strings around the large trees. The size of such trees usually mandates that the workers use lifting and support devices such as ladders, cherry picker trucks, scaffolding and alike to allow the workers to obtain the necessary height for the proper placement of the light strings. Since the horizontally wrapping of light strings requires the workers to frequently dismount, reposition, then remount the lifting and support devices. The time, labor and materials spent by using the present method of light string placement for a large tree results in significant expense for the commercial sponsor of the festive tree illuminations.
Since the beginning of this decorative practice, inventors have striven to make apparati that would relieve participants from the tedious and time consuming festive illumination of trees.
In response, numerous inventions have attempted to simplify and improve the process of lighting Christmas trees, such examples include lighting systems that have been known which provide a plurality of dependent strings of lamps connected in series, or in parallel, which are coordinated through a central ring or collar that is placed on the crown or trunk of the tree. Known systems are disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,870,547, Crucefix and U.S. Pat. No. 4,736,282, Ahroni, U.S. Pat. No. 4,720,773, Ahroni, and U.S. Pat. No. 4,099,824, Schoppelrey, U.S. Pat. No. 3,770,951, Correlli, deceased et al.
These devices however are generally designed for home use for indoor Christmas trees of for limited use for outdoor trees of modest to small stature; and construction materials which will not endure outdoor or repeated use. In particular, none of the prior art discloses placement system that allows simple placement upon and removal from trees of a large or multistory stature, or incorporates structure which allows the invention to stand on its own in emulation of a tree shape.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
In light of the foregoing disadvantages revealed under the prior art, the present invention provides a decorative lighting system that in its preferred embodiment comprises of a decorative lighting assembly and a lifting pole. The decorative lighting assembly comprises of a mounting collar with a lifting bracket and a lighting assembly. The mounting bracket comprises of two large light weight plastic hoops held in a parallel planar position relative to one another by evenly spaced plastic spacers. The mounting bracket supports the light assembly which comprises of a circular power bus and a set light strings connected in parallel to the bus. The light strings pass between the plastic spacers and radiate to a position remote from the mounting bracket. The power bus is connected to a power source remote from the mounting bracket.
In one embodiment of the invention which is used on larger trees, the non-mounting collar ends of each light string of the set are connected to two additional light strings, thereby allowing each light string to form an inverted “Y” shape. This attachment of additional light strings provides greater illumination coverage needed to compensate for the additional height and girth of larger trees.
The lifting pole which is expandable, and in the preferred form telescopic, has a hook assembly at one end which reversibly engages the lifting bracket. The user grasps the lifting pole at the non-hook end and then positions the hook to reversibly engage the lifting bracket and to lift the mounting bracket and light assembly upward. The user positions the pole so as to place the mounting collar at or near the crown of the tree so that the mounting bracket surrounds so the trunk of the tree crown. Once the mounting collar is in place, the user then detaches the poles from the lifting bracket and then proceeds to position the light strands down the side of the tree in positions to provide for uniform illumination of the tree.
In another embodiment, the mounting collar is placed over the hook end of lifting pole to allow the hook to engage the lifting bracket. The user then lifts the pole into a full upright position and securely locates the non-hook end of the pole into the ground or a base. The light strings and pole are of sufficient respective length and height so as to allow the light strings to be radially disposed remotely from the mounting collar by suitably securing the non-mounting collar ends of the light strings to the ground. The light strings are secured to the ground at their non-mounting collar ends by being tied stakes plated in the ground. The light strings are positioned and secured so that their overall combined outline is a conical shape generally emulating that of a Christmas tree.
It is an object of this invention is to provide a decorative lighting system that may be used on large trees and other suitable large plant life, the placement and removal of which is simple, economical, and facile thereby permitting the rapid and inexpensive illumination of the subject matter.
It is a further object of the invention to reduce the need for lifting and support platforms traditionally needed for commercial festive illumination of large trees, thereby reducing associated expense and possible worker exposure to injuries from falling off such platforms.
It is a further object of the invention to reduce amount of manpower and associated expense traditionally needed for commercial festive illumination of large trees.
It is another object of this invention is to provide a decorative lighting system that is composed of a lightweight synthetic hoop that supports a system of interconnected light strings which can be placed on top of taller trees or similar structures through the use of an expandable pole that features a hook attachment system.
Another object of this device is to provide a decorative lighting system that can incorporate a decorative accessory which may be located at or near the top of the lifting bracket examples of such accessory would include, but not be limited to, bells or angels or corporate logos or any other accessory of suitable size, shape and composition.
It is another object of this invention to provide a new and improved festive lighting system that is suitable for use with large trees.
It is another object of this invention to provide a new and improved decorative lighting system that may be used to illuminate many objects in addition to Christmas trees.
It is another object of this invention is to provide a decorative lighting system that can be erected as a stand alone device that when light, has an overall conical illumination shape that resembles the that of a
Husar Stephen
Long John D.
LandOfFree
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