Electricity: magnetically operated switches – magnets – and electr – Magnets and electromagnets – Magnet structure or material
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-07
2001-10-02
Donovan, Lincoln (Department: 2832)
Electricity: magnetically operated switches, magnets, and electr
Magnets and electromagnets
Magnet structure or material
C210S222000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06297719
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to magnets arranged in sets and aligned for encapsulation into magnetic therapy devices.
Magnetic therapy practice has caused the development of products with permanent magnets distributed on the products. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,509,219 teaches a sleeping mattress structure provided with permanent magnets each having a magnetic field strength of at least 850 gauss which are disposed on the mattress for maximum magnetic curing effect. U.S. Pat. No. 4,921,560 teaches a method for fixing the permanent magnets to bed covering. Merchandise worn by humans having magnetic structure has also been developed. For example, Japan Life Products 1992 Catalog, at page 10 and 11, show belts, elbow and knee supporters, wrist and foot support massager provided with magnetic structure. Similarly, present day magnetic therapy merchandise includes head bands, vests, belts, wrist bands, supports for the elbows, arms, legs, knee and ankle, and also necklaces.
The apparent premise for the merchandise provided with the magnetic structure is to place a permanent magnet such that body cells are exposed to a low-level magnetic field emitted from the permanent magnets. The magnetic exposure is believed to assist stressed cells in restoring their correct balance of electrical charge for performing more efficiently, see undated article by Japan Life Products, entitled: “Spreading Good Sleep Around the World”. The magnetic exposure when concentrated at the same specific points on the body known to acupuncture and accupressure practitioners is a developing therapeutic practice.
An especially effective form of an arrangement of magnets for application to directly on the human skin, or within one to two layers of natural or synthetic material or sheet polymer, has been shown to be a set of magnets of about the same cross sectional area is several permanent magnets are required to produce the maximum magnetic exposure.
In U.S. Pat. No. 4,587,956 it is disclosed that opposite magnetic poles have unique therapeutic effects on body tissues. That patent discloses that flux from a north pole of a magnet if applied in effective levels in the order of at least 200 gauss per square inch has a sedator effect, reduces pain, mobilizes calcium, relieves muscle spasms, increases joint mobility and lowers the pH of the affected tissues. By contrast, flux from a south pole of a magnet stimulates circulation, speeds healing time, strengthens tissues, and raises the pH to a weak alkaline condition characterizing healthy tissue. It is further disclosed that the north pole flux may reduce the electrogalvanic potential across the nerve sheaths in the affected tissue to a value substantially below that recognized by the brain as a pain signal; and that the south pole flux, if applied subsequently, does not raise the potential to a value which the brain would recognize as a pain signal, thus it can effect healing while enabling normal exercise without pain.
A prior art arrangement of magnets is known to engage the cooperative magnetic strength of side by side magnets and to at the same time provide enhanced equal and opposite polar magnetic effects.
FIGS. 1-3
are exemplary of these arrangements, referred to herein as a magnetic unit.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention comprises an apparatus and method for initially bringing together and thereafter delivering an aligned set of magnets easily separable into sets of 4 or higher in even numbers. While magnetic units are effective in magnetic therapy where a relatively flat surface is to be applied toward the skin surface, the side by side arrangement of magnets with a cross section substantially greater than the thickness results in attractive and repulsive forces in the four magnet magnetic unit as in
FIGS. 1-3
such that the set is easily fragmented after bringing them together unless the unit is immediately supportively encapsulated. Such encapsulation includes sealed polymer envelopes with sufficient lateral and torsional rigidity to keep the magnets in the unit in the desired square planar arrangement instead of stacking, overlapping or flipping polar sides while at the same time having planar flexibility to be applied to undulating skin surfaces so that the skin side face of the individual magnets are substantially normal to the skin surface to deliver a maximum Gaussian field. Clearly, the assembly of the unit and transfer to a sufficiently supportive encapsulation are in the prior art a labor intensive activity, where the magnets are brought together by hand to assure correct polar relation in the unit and afterward each unit is moved to an encapsulation bottom sheet in a way to maintains the planar and polar relation of the unit. Where the very strong rare earth permanent magnets are used, the planar arrangement maintenance is an absolute requirement as such magnets are virtually impossible to separate face to face in opposite pole arrangement without some tool. There is a need for a device and method that will reduce the hand work and time needed to accomplish these steps.
The present invention is a plenum or chute into which are fed or stacked one planar unit after another. In this description, magnets have a substantial cross section greater than the magnet thickness, forming sides and top and bottom cross section faces having generally about the same area and shape in a unit. Poles of the magnet are located on the faces and reference to poles in this description refers to the pole of the top face. Stacking in the plenum of the units is such that the pole of a top face is opposite the pole of the bottom face of the unit just above it. Thus, the units are attractively held together in a stack which may rise to a substantial height above the side supportive chute or plenum without the need of such side support.
The side support of the chute or plenum is required only for a penultimate unit, the next to the bottom unit of a stack of two or more units, where at least the next to the bottom unit is actually within the cross section of the chute or plenum. A slider space is formed beneath the chute or plenum having about the dimensions of a unit immediately below the next to the last unit bottom unit, where the slider space is defined by a floor and at least two side walls. A bottom unit is by gravity pressed into that slider space by the weight of the units above it. A slider or other motion inducing means (magnetic, finger projections from slots in the floor, etc.) moves the bottom unit from the slider space to a delivery slot portion, whereby retraction of the slider from the slider space causes the previously next to the bottom unit to drop into the slider space to become the bottom unit. Successive actions of moving the slider into and retracting from the slider space causes a succession of units to move into the delivery slot portion, forming two rows of magnets having adjacent magnets with opposite (attracting) poles.
At an end of the delivery slot portion, each motion of the slider into the slider space pushes a unit free of the walls of the delivery slot portion onto a flat assembly surface. In one preferred embodiment, a flat circular piece of metal (such as a 0.25 to 1.5 inch diameter washer) is lain on the top of the unit touching the top of each individual magnet such that it forms a magnetic field condenser and provides planar maintenance support to the unit. The
REFERENCES:
patent: 4486729 (1984-12-01), Lee
patent: 4509219 (1985-04-01), Yagi
patent: 4587956 (1986-05-01), Griffin et al.
patent: 4921560 (1990-05-01), Yamaguchi
patent: 5063368 (1991-11-01), Ettehadich
patent: 5596304 (1997-01-01), Tatchyn
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