Chain – staple – and horseshoe making – Chains – Ornamental
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-21
2003-05-13
Jones, David (Department: 3725)
Chain, staple, and horseshoe making
Chains
Ornamental
C059S082000, C059S035100, CD11S013000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06560955
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to the field of decorative jewelry items, and more particularly to the basic structural link element of a jewelry rope chain exhibiting unusual visual properties.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art
Rope chains are a popular type of jewelry made from linking a number of regular annular links together in a repetitive manner and usually soldering or welding every two links together. The result is a chain that is flexible and pleasing to the eye. The annular links are often formed of gold or other precious metal and are circular in form with flat sides. The circle is not complete as there must be a gap to permit the linking of the links with each other.
Jewelry rope chain has been made for many years. Although rope chains can be made by machine, the better quality rope chains are usually manufactured by hand. While a rope chain has the feel and look of a rope, it is actually made up of a series of individual C-shaped flat link elements made from a precious metal such as silver or gold. The C-shaped link elements are gapped and fastened together in a particular way, such that tightly interlinking annular link elements give the appearance of intertwining helical rope strands. The link elements of hand-made rope chains are made with a tighter fit and are more visually appealing than are machine-made rope chains. A number of annular link elements are connected and intertwined together in a systematic and repetitive pattern of orientation, resulting in an eye-pleasing, flexible, and delicate-appearing chain that looks and feels like a finely braided helix.
In a conventional rope chain, the orientation pattern of individual link elements producing the rope chain is repeated every several link elements, for example every four link elements, and as such is referred to as a four-link rope chain. In an improvement to the conventional basic rope chain, it is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,651,517 that the link elements can be constructed in different and narrower dimensions so that the pattern is repeated every six link elements or even every eight link elements. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,301,498, to Chia et al., it is suggested that, by narrowing the cross-section of the link element, the six-link rope chain's connected segments appear finer than those of the four-link version and consequently provide a more delicate and refined presentation than that obtainable with a four-link rope chain arrangement. While the '517 patent uses a six-link rope chain as a preferred embodiment, that patent teaches the formulas for creating rope chains consisting of a repeated series of six, eight, or more link elements.
Some manufacturers of jewelry use different colored gold and silver elements to enhance the beauty of the jewelry article. Examples are: rope chains in which sets of link elements of one color alternate with sets of link elements of another color; and bracelets or necklaces constructed of interconnected twisted loops exhibiting alternating colors along their lengths. Gold, for example, is available in at least four colors; white, yellow, rose (pink), and green.
However, in all of the prior art construction techniques for producing rope chain jewelry, each link element is of a single solid color, texture, shape, and pattern, e.g., each link element may be stamped from a solid thin sheet of precious metal, such as gold. Thus, for example, while an all yellow gold rope chain or an all white gold rope chain is attractive, it is otherwise uninteresting due to the monotonic nature of its unvarying coloration and/or texture along the link elements of the chain. Those prior art rope chains that do exhibit variations of colors along their lengths nevertheless are constructed of individual link elements each of which is of a single solid color, texture, shape, and/or pattern.
Other jewelry articles exhibit variations of colors along their lengths using interconnected twisted chain loops, but they are not regarded as rope chains as defined herein.
Moreover, all prior art link elements are generally C-shaped with a constant, typically rectangular cross section. As a result, a predictable visual effect is realized when the C-shaped link elements are assembled to simulate an intertwined rope chain. Additionally, after all of the link elements have been assembled into a finished rope chain jewelry item, a large percentage of the total volume of precious metal in each link element is forever hidden from view. That is, for the structural integrity of the rope chain, certain dimensional parameters have to be maintained, and there have been few attempts in the prior art of manufacturing rope chains to reduce the amount of precious metals being used, for fear of lessening or destroying the structural integrity of the finished product.
One example of prior attempts to reduce the amount of precious metal in a rope chain link element can be found in U.S. Pat. No. 5,185,995 to Dal Monte. In this patent, it is taught to modify the conventional cross sectional shape of a link element by maintaining a large mass of material at the exterior edge periphery and forming a narrow or pointed interior edge periphery. However, since the cross section for a particular link element is constant throughout the extent of the link element, this severely limits the flexibility of design. For example, manufacturing a link element having different link thicknesses, or different link widths, or different link cross sectional patterns along the extent of the link is not suggested in the '995 patent, and may not be possible when employing the limited teaching of the '995 patent.
Furthermore, because of the thin pointed interior edge of a link manufactured to the specifications of the '995 patent, the interior edges are fragile and can easily be damaged due to the softness of the precious metal (e.g., gold) and due to the abuses that may be inflicted on the rope chain while in use (excessive bending or twisting). Such inadvertent, but normal, usage can compress the width of the links, resulting in a loose interfitting of the links.
Other prior art teaches forming flat surfaces on both sides of a link element to produce a double spiral effect within the already double spiral effect of an otherwise conventional rope chain. Both U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,425,228 and 5,285,625 show flattened sides on the link elements, the latter patent showing the effects of such flattened sides in
FIG. 5
thereof. However, neither of these patents teach constructing a rope chain which has two visually different helixes.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention provides the means and method for constructing rope chain link elements in a way to produce a rope chain piece of jewelry in which each link element, or selected link elements, and therefore the rope chain itself, exhibits a unique visual property, e.g., surface texture, coloration, surface reflectivity, pattern feature or characteristic, shape, or other physical appearance attributes. Such unique visual property traits for the succession of link elements results in a more attractive, fanciful, more delicate and interesting fashion jewelry item.
In addition to exhibiting unique visual properties, employing the concepts of the present invention can produce lengths of rope chains in which one of the apparent strands of “rope” has a different visual appearance than the intertwining “rope” strand. That is, the appearance of a rope strand at any point along the length of rope chain will be visually different than the adjacent strand. For example, one strand may have an apparent smaller diameter than that of the adjacent strand. Or, the texture, coloration, surface reflectivity, pattern, shape, or other physical attribute of one strand may be totally distinct relative to the adjacent strand.
Additionally, in the process of altering the physical shape of the individual link elements, simultaneously with the enhancement of the visual effect due to the shape altering techniques, small amounts of the precious metal making
Chia Cheo K.
Chia Huy K.
Chia Meang K.
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