Elongated-member-driving apparatus – With means to shape work or cut product – Means to form opening in work for member
Reexamination Certificate
2000-06-20
2002-04-02
Smith, Scott A. (Department: 3721)
Elongated-member-driving apparatus
With means to shape work or cut product
Means to form opening in work for member
C227S018000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06364191
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates generally to fasteners of the type that are commonly used to attach tags to articles of commerce and more particularly to loop fasteners of the aforementioned type.
Fasteners of the type commonly used to attach tags to articles of commerce are well-known and widely used. Typically, such fasteners are unitary structures made of molded plastic. One of the earlier types of such fasteners, which is still in widespread use today, includes an elongated, flexible filament having a cross-bar disposed at a first end thereof and either a paddle or a second cross-bar disposed at the second end thereof. In use, the cross-bar disposed at the first end is typically inserted first through a tag and then through the desired article of commerce, with the paddle or second cross-bar not being inserted into the article and being used to retain the tag on the fastener. Typically, a plurality of the aforementioned fasteners are fabricated together, either as part of a fastener clip or as continuously-connected fastener stock. The clip-type arrangement is disclosed, for example, in U.S. Pat. No. 3,103,666, inventor Bone, which issued Sep. 17, 1963, and which is incorporated herein by reference. An example of continuously-connected fastener stock is disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,121,487, inventor Bone, which issued Oct. 24, 1978, and which is incorporated herein by reference.
As can be seen in the aforementioned '666 patent, in a clip-type arrangement, the cross-bars at the first ends of the respective fasteners are arranged parallel to one another, with each such cross-bar being connected to a common, perpendicularly-extending, runner bar by a corresponding severable connector. In addition, the paddles or cross-bars located at the second ends of the respective fasteners are also arranged parallel to one another. Such paddles or cross-bars at the second ends may or may not be connected to one another by severable connectors.
Although, in theory, an individual fastener from the above described clip could be attached to a desired article by manually detaching the cross-bar at the first end of the fastener from the runner bar and then manually inserting said cross-bar through the desired article, it should be appreciated that the manual insertion of said cross-bar through most articles is very difficult to achieve in practice. This is in part because, to insert the cross-bar through an article (and/or through a hole in a tag), one must first pivot the cross-bar about the first end of the filament so that the cross-bar is placed in a generally parallel orientation relative to the filament and then, while maintaining said generally parallel orientation, insert the cross-bar through the article. However, due to the relatively small size of the cross-bar and the somewhat limited flexibility of the filament at its juncture with the cross-bar, said pivoting action is difficult to perform manually. The manual insertion of a cross-bar through an article is also made difficult by the fact that the cross-bar does not easily penetrate certain types of materials of which the article may be made. Accordingly, for the foregoing and other reasons, fasteners of the type described above, as well as fasteners of the type that make up continuously-connected fastener stock, have typically been dispensed using appropriate fastener dispensing tools.
Examples of fastener dispensing tools adapted for dispensing fasteners from fastener clips of the type described above are disclosed in the following U.S. patents, all of which are incorporated herein by reference: U.S. Pat. No. 3,103,666, inventor Bone, which issued Sep. 17, 1963; U.S. Pat. No. 4,611,740, inventor Kunreuther, which issued Sep. 16, 1986; U.S. Pat. No. 4,040,555, inventor Jenkins, which issued Aug. 9, 1977; U.S. Pat. No. 4,706,362, inventor Strausburg, which issued Nov. 17, 1987; U.S. Pat. No. 4,125,215, inventor Jenkins, which issued Nov. 14, 1978; U.S. Pat. No. 5,020,713, inventor Kunreuther, which issued Jun. 4, 1991; and U.S. Pat. No. 5,529,233, inventors Davignon et al., which issued Jun. 25, 1996.
Examples of fastener dispensing tools adapted for dispensing fasteners from continuously connected fastener stock are disclosed in the following U.S. patents, all of which are incorporated herein by reference: U.S. Pat. No. 4,121,487, inventor Bone, which issued Oct. 24, 1978; U.S. Pat. No. 5,320,269, inventors Deschenes et al., which issued Jun. 14, 1994; U.S. Pat. No. 4,955,475, inventors McCarthy et al., which issued Sep. 11, 1990; U.S. Pat. No. 4,456,161, inventor Russell, which issued Jun. 26, 1984; U.S. Pat. No. 5,024,365, inventor Bourque, which issued Jun. 18, 1991; and U.S. Pat. No. 4,998,661, inventors Deschenes et al., which issued Mar. 12, 1991.
Whereas filamentary fasteners of the type described above having a cross-bar at a first end thereof and a paddle or a cross-bar at a second thereof are quite useful in attaching tags to many articles of commerce, such fasteners have limited tag-attaching utility for certain articles of commerce, such as sunglasses, which are not made of a material through which the cross-bar may be inserted and then retained thereagainst. For the foregoing reasons, as well as for other applications, various loop fasteners have been devised.
One type of loop fastener comprises a flexible filament having a longitudinally-extending plug at a first end thereof and a transversely-oriented socket at a second end thereof. (A related type of loop fastener includes a cross-bar instead of the aforementioned plug.) Typically, the socket is tubular in shape with opposing open ends and is provided with an apertured wall (or one or more flanges defining an opening of reduced size compared to the remainder of the socket interior) that divides the socket transversely into a pair of symmetric portions. Typically, the plug is in the form of a cone-shaped head and/or includes one or more spring tabs to enable the plug to be inserted through the apertured wall (or past the one or more flanges) from either end of the socket while, at the same time, keeping the plug from being easily withdrawn through the apertured wall after having been inserted therethrough. The spring tabs are typically arranged in a plane perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the socket. The aforementioned type of loop fastener often further includes a stop, the stop being sized so as not to be insertable through the apertured wall and being positioned at such a distance from the plug so as to prevent the plug, once inserted through the apertured wall of the socket, from being pulled through the opposite open end of the socket to a point where it is accessible for tampering. Accordingly, once the plug has been inserted through the apertured wall (or past the one or more flanges), the fastener locks itself into a loop of a substantially fixed size. For this reason, such loop fasteners are often referred to in the art as “self-lockable loop fasteners.”
Self-lockable loop fasteners are to be contrasted with other types of loop fasteners, such as cinching loop fasteners or cable ties (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,333,822, inventors Benoit et al., which issued Aug. 2, 1994 and which is incorporated herein by reference) and shoe-lasting loop fasteners (see U.S. Pat. No. 5,438,724, inventor Merser, which issued Aug. 8, 1995; U.S. Pat. No. 5,586,353, inventor Merser, which issued Dec. 24, 1996; and PCT Appln. No. PCT/US96/19479, filed Jun. 12, 1997, all of which are incorporated herein by reference).
Examples of self-lockable loop fasteners include the Secur-a-tach® family of fasteners commercially available from Avery Dennison Corporation, Framingham, Mass. Self-lockable loop fasteners are also described in the following U.S. patents and patent applications, all of which are incorporated herein by reference: U.S. Pat. No. 3,979,799, inventors Merser et al., which issued Sep. 14, 1976; U.S. Pat. No. 4,559,676, inventor Paradis, which issued Dec. 24, 1985; U.S. Pat. No. 4,183,567, inventor Bone, which issued Jan. 15, 1980; U.S. Des
Cooper William J.
Deschenes Charles L.
Grendol Clark L.
Matthews Clinton N.
Avery Dennison Corporation
Kriegsman & Kriegsman
Smith Scott A.
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