Land vehicles: bodies and tops – Bodies – Enclosed compartment
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-15
2002-08-13
Patel, Kiran B. (Department: 3612)
Land vehicles: bodies and tops
Bodies
Enclosed compartment
C296S022000, C099S339000, C099S446000, C052S079100
Reexamination Certificate
active
06431628
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to pizza preparation and delivery vehicles.
2. Brief Description of the Prior Art.
Pizza is ubiquitous in American culture and is immensely popular among younger consumers. Pizza can be obtained in a variety of different ways. It can be cooked at home from scratch or a frozen pizza can be conveniently slipped in the oven. Some frozen pizzas now feature self-rising crust. There are numerous pizza restaurants across America, some of which are members of a national franchise such as Pizza Hut® or Little Caesar's,®. Some of these pizza restaurants offer hand-thrown fresh crust; others use par-baked crusts.
Most dine-in pizza restaurants use a gas-fired or electric tunnel oven with a conveyor belt to move the pizza through the tunnel. Because the inlet and the outlet of tunnel type ovens is open, a tremendous amount of heat is often lost in the kitchen and requires an exhaust hood to keep the temperature of the kitchen to a manageable level. In addition, these ovens are normally kept at a minimum baseline temperature which is substantially above ambient temperature when they are not cooking pizza. This allows the oven to reach cooking temperatures of 500° F. or more without substantial warm-up time. Many of the tunnel ovens used in pizza restaurants are not particularly fuel-efficient because they must maintain this base line temperature and because of energy losses during cooking at the inlet and outlet of the tunnel. Most tunnel type ovens use blowers to impinge hot air on the top and bottom of the pizza. (These are convection type ovens.)
Another popular way for consumers to obtain pizza is delivery, at home, in the college dormitory, hotel room, or office. Domino'® pizza is a well-known national franchise that specializes in delivering pizza. Other national franchises and independent restaurants also deliver pizza. Consumers demand hot pizza and they like to have it delivered as quickly as possible after an order has been placed.
A typical delivery business will include a kitchen located in a strip center or other convenience suburban location, with a belt driven tunnel oven. When an order is placed over the telephone, fax or email, the cook typically assembles the pizza on a par-baked crust. After the pizza is run through the tunnel oven and is cooked, it is cut and placed in a box.
The delivery person then typically places the hot boxed pizza in some sort of heat retentive package and drives to the consumers location at home, at the college dorm, etc. The goal is to deliver hot pizza as quickly as possible.
Various attempts have been made to design a mobile pizza kitchen to eliminate the need for the pizza kitchen at a fixed location. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 4,632,836 assigned to Pizza Hut, Inc. describes a pizza preparation and delivery system which eliminates the need for a fixed pizza kitchen. This system uses a commissary or home base to service a fleet of vehicles, each of which can cook and deliver pizza. Customers place orders with the home base which dispatches the vehicles to the customers' location. The vehicle disclosed in this patent is a Ford® E350 Truck with a van body mounted on the rear. This system used a driver and a cook to accomplish different tasks. The oven is a conveyor type with a belt. The applicant recommended a WEAR EVER IMPINGER™ oven from Lincoln Manufacturing. A separate 110/220 volt AC generator was necessary to power the oven, the refrigerated case and other components in this system. The applicants in this prior art design recommend use of a 15 KW generator operated at 1800 RPM from Onan Corporation. Because of the heat generated by the oven, a hood is provided, which is the subject of U.S. Pat. No. 4,556,046.
The pizza crust in U.S. Pat. No. 4,632,836 was partially assembled before transit, preferably by covering the proofed dough with a layer of sauce and a layer of cheese, before storing it in the refrigerated case. Assembly and cooking of the pizza is completed by the pizza cook while the vehicle is in transit to the delivery destination. The preferred cooking temperature is about 490° to 510° F. and the preferred cooking time is about 10-12 minutes for 13″ and 15″ pizzas. The temperature and time could be varied from about 450° to 550° F. and from about 6-15 minutes. The purchase, operating and maintenance costs of the components in U.S. Pat. No. 4,632,836 ran higher than what was desirable. One factor adding to these costs was the gasoline or propane fueled generator which was included on the vehicles to supply the power needs of the refrigerated case and oven. Not only did this generator add to the purchase, operating, and maintenance costs of the vehicle, it also increased vehicle noise.
Another problem with the system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,632,836 is oven ventilation. Tunnel type conveyor belt pizza ovens typically operate at temperatures of 500° F. and require a substantial ventilation hood because of the heat that is lost from this type of an oven at the inlet and the outlet. U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,167 also assigned to Pizza Hut, Inc. discloses an oven ventilation system for use in a pizza delivery vehicle. The oven ventilation system of this patent is described as an improvement to the ventilation system disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,632,836.
By the time U.S. patent application Ser. No. 718,894 (U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,167) was filed, the preferred vehicle had been downsized from the Ford® E350 Truck with attached van body to a typical full-size van, such as the Ford “Econoline®.” The kitchen layout was the same in U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,167 as in the predecessor, U.S. Pat. No. 4,632,836. That is, the new vehicle included a driver's station and a kitchen area with a cook's chair and a tunnel type, conveyor oven. The new vehicle also included a separate electrical generator.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,643,167 recommended use of an impingement type oven modified for use with LP Gas burners rather than electrical heating elements. This oven was designed with an average output of about 3,000 B.T.U. and operates with a consumption of about 1 lb. of LP gas per hour. The oven does not have a flue, but rather relies on the open slots to exhaust the combustion products into the oven ventilation system described in the patent.
Although using this smaller van resulted in a reduction of the purchase price, operating and maintenance costs, market pressures still motivated the search for a vehicle that would be less expensive to purchase, operate and maintain. In particular, it was critical to minimize the costs of this new mobile preparation and delivery system so that an operator could offer pizza at competitive prices, while achieving the same or higher profit levels as one could achieve in a conventional pizza restaurant or delivery business.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,919,477, also assigned to Pizza Hut, Inc., describes yet another attempt to deliver a compact pizza preparation and delivery vehicle. This prior art patent utilizes a small pickup truck, such as a Ford Range®, Model “Regular Cab 2-wheel drive.” This would generally be considered a “mini-pickup”. This pickup truck had a payload capacity of approximately 1600 pounds and a gross vehicle weight restriction of approximately 4,000 pounds. The cargo bed of the truck is approximately 77 inches long and 54 inches wide. The engine is a 2.3 liter, 4 cylinder design. The patent recommends that the original alternator that comes from the manufacturers with this engine be replaced by a heavy duty alternator such as the one sold by Lestek Manufacturing under the designation 9135P.F. which was rated for 135 amps. The preferred oven is an impingement oven wherein heated air is impelled by high-speed fans or blowers towards the top and bottom of the pizza. This is a convection type oven. The oven was of a special design using two separate chambers to allow two pizzas to be cooked simultaneously. The doors of this special oven were equipped with actuators which would automatically open the doors an
Blackwell Sanders Peper Martin LLP
Kbell Pizza Enterprises, L.L.C.A.
Patel Kiran B.
LandOfFree
Mobile pizza kitchen does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Mobile pizza kitchen, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Mobile pizza kitchen will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2974002