Apparel – Head coverings – Combined with diverse article
Reexamination Certificate
2001-08-03
2004-01-06
Lindsey, Rodney M. (Department: 3765)
Apparel
Head coverings
Combined with diverse article
C002S195100, C002S918000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06671885
ABSTRACT:
CROSS-REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS
Not applicable.
STATEMENT REGARDING FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH OR DEVELOPMENT
Not applicable.
REFERENCE TO A SEQUENCE LISTING
Not applicable.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to wearing apparel having means to attach and secure articles, and more particular, headwear for securing articles such as glasses. A preferred embodiment of the present invention is a baseball style cap with an internal means for attaching or securing sunglasses to the cap above the brim of the cap, where the sunglasses may be readily secured and withdrawn therefrom.
2. The Prior Art
As is well known, many persons use sunglasses to shade their eyes when engaging in outdoor activities or sports such as jogging, running, tennis, fishing, boating and other outdoor recreations. Often times, the individual wearing the sunglasses also wears a hat to further protect himself or herself from the harmful rays of the sun, or to keep hair from being blown about in the wind. At times, a person wearing both sunglasses and a hat may need to remove the sunglasses for a particular reason, such as when entering a shadowed area or the interior of the building or for any other of a variety of reasons. Problems arise because there is often no convenient location to temporarily store the sunglasses in a secure manner. Many persons will often hook the temple of the sunglasses on the collar of a shirt. However, sunglasses hooked to the collar of a shirt are not secure, may fall off and get lost. Moreover, it is not convenient to readily remove the sunglasses with one hand to place them back on the nose and ears for wearing.
Similarly, one playing or working outdoors and wearing a hat may need to temporarily secure an object for ready retrieval. One example is a pencil. However, because the individual is wearing a hat, the pencil does not readily fit behind the ears and the use of a pant pocket is often cumbersome if not at all practical.
In the past, many efforts have been made for the convenient storage or securing of eyeglasses and other articles on hats for immediate and ready retrieval. However, unlike the present invention, most of the past efforts involve cumbersome external apparatus or other external means, which detract from the overall aesthetic appearance of the hat.
Other prior attempts to utilize an internal means for securing the article or sunglasses are often impractical, as these disclosures involve the sealing of the article within a pocket type receptacle thereby requiring the use of two hands to open or unseal the pocket. Other attempts utilizing receptacles are also impractical in that the article is not very secure when attached to the hat and may readily fall out, especially when the hat is removed.
The present invention uses an internal means of securing the sunglasses or other articles to the exterior of the hat. This is accomplished by a slit opening in the hat thereby providing access to the internal securing means. When the sunglasses or other articles are removed from the internal securing means, the slit opening returns to its former shape and is barely noticeable and almost invisible. The means used to secure the eyeglasses or other articles securely hold the objects in place during all types of vigorous activities such as jogging, tennis, cycling, fishing and other sports and recreation. Moreover, the hat may be removed and the article or sunglasses remain secured to the hat.
As noted, past attempts to create a convenient means for securing and retrieving sunglasses and other articles involve unsightly external modifications to the hat. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 5,860,167 discloses a hat with numerous unsightly external receptacles sewn about or otherwise attached externally to the cap. The receptacles, while providing a means for securing articles, including sunglasses, detract from the overall aesthetic appearance of the hat. Moreover, when the sunglasses or articles are removed, the external receptacles remain visible and aesthetically displeasing.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,179,753 teaches an encircling band with an unsightly clip above the brim of a visor or a brim of a cap. Not only is removal or retrieval of the sunglasses somewhat cumbersome with this disclosure, but again, the large clip on the front of the cap or visor remains conspicuously noticeable when the glasses are removed.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,867,874 discloses a clip like implement holder for securing the temples of the sunglasses. Although the clip can be removed from the cap, the clip is nonetheless external and unsightly when in use.
An extremely cumbersome and unsightly apparatus for holding eyeglasses is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,636,048. The primary objective of this disclosure, however, is to enable a person to utilize eyeglasses without having the eyeglasses contact the nose and ears.
Other types of devices have been utilized for supporting eyeglasses on the head of a wearer, such as is shown in U.S. Pat. No. 2,766,657, which is for glasses which are especially provided with a clip to engage the hair and support the spectacles; another such device is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 1,647,124; and, in the past, eyeglasses have been connected to hats in various ways, such as shown in U.S. Pat. No. 264,574 with a hinge connection, as is also typical of U.S. Pat. No. 857,838 and U.S. Pat. No. 1,514,111.
Various other forms of headwear for use while playing various sports have been patented. Many of these hats include pockets for storing and displaying articles. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 1,664,255 discloses a hat with a strip of cloth sewn into the side and divided into a number of small pockets. Unfortunately, the articles do not fit snuggly in the pockets and they can fall out when the hat is removed. One solution is suggested in U.S. Pat. Nos. 2,744,256, 4,312,076, 4,451,935, and 5,539,929, which all disclose hats with sealable pockets. The shortcomings with these designs are that the stored articles are no longer visible and an extra step of having to open the pocket is needed to remove the articles. U.S. Pat. No. 5,581,813 discloses a hat with transparent pockets so that the articles are visible. However, like the hat of U.S. Pat. No. 1,664,255, the articles can fall out when the hat is removed.
A more recent disclosure of headwear utilizing an internal means for securing the temples of eyeglasses is set forth in U.S. Pat. No. 6,237,159 B1. Although the patent depicts three drawings of three different embodiments of the invention, only that embodiment disclosed in
FIG. 3
is claimed. In this embodiment, the internal means for receiving the temples of the glasses is an internal headband, commonly found in almost all baseball caps. The upper edge of the internal headband is stitched to each side of the crown portion of the cap, from the point of insertion in the crown to a point approximately three inches toward the rear end of the crown.
Although U.S. Pat. No. 6,237,159 B1 seemingly addresses some of the shortcomings of the prior art discussed above, that disclosure nonetheless retains some disadvantages to the present disclosure. As the patent itself states, the disclosure of U.S. Pat. No. 6,237,159 B1 is essentially only effective with glasses having a straight end piece temple. By far, most glasses, especially sunglasses, consist of temples with a bend or curve at each end distal to the lens portion of the glasses for adequately securing the temples around the ears, thereby allowing the user to wear the glasses. Thus, the disclosure claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,237,159 B1 is not well suited for the vast majority of sunglasses manufactured and marketed world wide. In addition, the “pocket” or “sleeve” approach claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,237,159 B1 for securing the glasses may still allow for disengagement of the glasses during rigorous activity or when the cap is removed.
Despite the number of different disclosures related to securing articles, especially sunglasses, to hats, there remains a need for a hat or headwear that accomplishes the fol
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