Supports – Brackets – Article holding means
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-22
2001-01-23
Ramirez, Ramon O. (Department: 3632)
Supports
Brackets
Article holding means
C248S316100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06176457
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
1. Field of the Invention
The invention refers to a holder for an object such as a mobile phone, a palm computer or the like, having a back and two walls which are generally parallel and extend the same way from the back, the walls having on their mutually facing sides resilient engagement plates for engagement with a respective side edge of the object.
Thus, the invention concerns a holder of the type having a back plate with two separate walls, which are generally parallel and extend in the same direction from the back, said walls having on their mutually facing sides engagement plates which comprise a resilient material in order to releasably engage an object such as a mobile phone or a palm computer (docking computer) or the like.
2. Description of the Related Art
One problem with cars having several users having different mobile phones is that all these users easily and safely want to put their mobile phones in an existing holder without need of adjustment.
In automobiles and the like, a holder is often mounted on the dash panel, permitting the mobile phone to be vertically engaged in said holder.
In order to permit the holder to safely hold an object or different objects having different widths, it is well known to make the holder walls mutually displacable and to make the walls and front engagement with the object. But the adjustability by mutually displacing the walls also constitutes a problem, because it is not always obvious how the adjustment should be performed, and moreover, there is always the risk that the adjustment is made in the wrong way, which means risk that the object could be damaged when mounted in the holder, or drop down from the holder. Therefore it is preferred to provide the holder with fixed walls.
If engagement plates of foam rubber or the like are supported on mutually fixed holder walls, they must be relatively soft in order to permit easy insertion and removal of the object, but then the rubber must also have a relatively high friction coefficient against the sides of the object. This means, that such rubber plates will be worn relatively fast, wereby the holding safety will soon be decreased. This is true also when the holder is well adjusted to a certain object.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
One object of the invention is to provide a durable holder with fixed walls, which permits easy and safe repetitive insertion, holding and removal of an object.
Another object of the invention is to provide a holder which can accommodate objects within a relatively large width range, without any necessity of relatively displacing the holder walls supporting the engagement plates.
These objects are achieved by the holder having a back and two separate walls which are generally parallel and extend the same way from the back, the walls having on mutually facing sides resilient engagement plates for engagement with a respective side edge of an object being held, each engagement plate having the shape of a base plate with a plurality of separate protruding support elements, the free ends of which define the free surfaces of the engagement plates, and in that the thickness of the support elements is substantially less than their protrusion length from the base plate.
Basically the invention resides in the features, that each of the resilient engagement plates has a base plate and a plurality of separate support elements, which protrude from said base plate, the free ends of said support elements defining the free surfaces of the engagement plates, and that the thickness of the support elements is substantially less than their protrusion distance from the base plate. Hereby, the support elements can be made of a relatively hard rubber, with a relatively low friction coefficient and still accomodate. The low friction coefficient means a low wear of the engagement plate as the mobile phone, palm computer or the like is inserted into and removed from the holder. Moreover, the deformation of the protruding support elements mainly by bending provides a relatively large gripping range in spite of the use of a relatively hard rubber, within a gripping force range which permits easy insertion, removal and holding of the object.
In preferred embodiments, the protruding elements could have the shape of mutually parallel strips or bands, which preferably extend in planes which are perpendicular to both the plane of the holder back and the planes of the holder walls, so that in use, these plates extend roughly in the horizontal plane. The longitudinal direction of these strips then extend in the normal direction to the plane of the holder back.
The holder walls are made to releasably receive the engagement plates. To this end, the engagement plates could be made to snapfit behind an opening edge on the inside of each wall. On the rear side, each engagement plate could have supports which engage the exterior shell of the wall.
In order to adjust the gripping width of the holder, the mobile holder could be delivered with at least one extra engagement plate and preferably a pair of gripping plates, the support elements of which have a length which differs from that of the other gripping plates.
In an other embodiment, the protruding support elements could have the shape of pins which protrude in the normal direction to the base plate of the engagement plate, similarly to the bristols of a branch.
The free ends of the protruding support elements define a generally single curved concave surface, said concave surfaces providing a natural positioning of the object in an orientation, in which it is generally parallel with the holder back, and in a position at a defined distance from the holder back. With such a concave shape of both the engagement plates, the mobile phone will be securely held even when the holder is subjected to a sharp acceleration in the forward direction.
The invention will now be closer described in connection to preferred embodiments of the inventive holder.
REFERENCES:
patent: 1366324 (1921-01-01), Newquist
patent: 1459582 (1923-06-01), Dubee
patent: 2332772 (1943-10-01), Amer
patent: 2539805 (1951-01-01), Allen
patent: 4368912 (1983-01-01), Holtz
patent: 4786121 (1988-11-01), Lyons
patent: 5659612 (1997-08-01), Wang
patent: 5832082 (1998-11-01), Nagai
patent: 5979724 (1999-11-01), Loewenthal
patent: 6082687 (2000-07-01), Kump et al.
Baxter Gwendolyn
Jacobson Price Holman & Stern PLLC
Ramirez Ramon O.
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