Supports: racks – Special article – Stacked articles
Reexamination Certificate
2001-01-19
2002-05-07
Stodola, Daniel P. (Department: 3634)
Supports: racks
Special article
Stacked articles
Reexamination Certificate
active
06382428
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a notepad and notepad holder combination, and more particularly is useful for notepads of the type comprising leaves each provided with an adhesive on a marginal edge portion, whereby the leaves are releasibly secured to one another along these marginal edge portions.
2. Description of the Related Art
It has previously been proposed, in U.S. Pat. No. 5,427,254, issued Jun. 27, 1995 to Gustave Knieriem, to provide a holding device for self-stick notepads using the one or more hook and loop, two-sided adhesive or other fasteners to position a self-stick notepad in a dispenser. The fastener is connected between the spine of the notepad and a wall of the dispenser to hold the notepad within the dispenser.
More particularly, a strip of fastener material is attached to the notepad, along the spine of the notepad, and co-operates with a strip of fastener material on the wall of the holder.
Therefore, this prior arrangement has the disadvantage that the dispenser cannot be employed with a conventional notepad and it is instead necessary to modify a conventional notepad by attaching a strip of the fastener material along the spine of the notepad.
In addition, it is proposed, in this prior patent, to provide a further strip of fastener material along one of a pair of side walls of the dispenser for frictional engagement with one side of the notepad in order to thereby retain the notepad in the dispenser.
BRIEF SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
According to the present invention, there is provided a notepad in combination with a notepad holder, the notepad comprising rectangular leaves each having a marginal edge portion, an adhesive on the marginal edge portion securing the leaf to an underlying leaf, and a free edge opposite from the marginal edge portion. The notepad holder comprises an open-sided tray structure comprising a base, a rectangular support surface on the base and walls extending at right angles to the pad support surface. The walls extend along three edges of a pad support surface and comprise a pair of opposed side walls and a third wall extending between the side walls. The notepad is mounted on the pad support surface, with the marginal edge portions adjacent the third wall, and a pair of strips of resilient material secured to the side walls are in contact with and are compressed by opposite sides of the notepad, whereby the notepad is releasibly frictionally retained in the tray structure. An elongate raised portion is located beneath the pad at a spacing from the free edges of the leaves.
When this combination is in use, by pressing a finger onto the notepad, between the raised portion and the third wall, the shape of the notepad can be deformed slightly, by bending the notepad into a shallow U-shape, as viewed in side view, so that the free edges of the leaves are thereby fanned slightly apart from one another. This fanning of the free edges of the leaves facilitates deflection by the thumb or finger of the user of the free edge of the uppermost leaf of the pad from the remaining leaves, so that the uppermost leaf can therefore readily be gripped and thereby stripped from the pad.
As the leaves are stripped, one at a time, from the notepad, it is necessary to ensure that the notepad is not thereby dislodged from its position on the pad support surface by the force that is required to strip each leaf from its adjacent leaf against the adhesive effect.
The present inventor has found that this problem can be substantially mitigated or even entirely overcome by providing, on each of the side walls a resilient material that is compressed between that sidewall and an opposed side of the notepad. Such compression of these strips of resilient material exerts a frictional retaining force on the side edges of the leaves of the notepad, which resists movement of the notepad away from the pad support surface.
The dislodging of the notepad from the pad support surface becomes more and more problematical as the notepad is used up and, consequently, has fewer and fewer leaves remaining in the notepad holder. Eventually, when only a very few leaves are left in the holder, there is an increased risk that removal of the uppermost one of these leaves will dislodge the remainder.
The present inventor has found that this problem can be substantially overcome by folding the leaves which are located closest to the pad support surface. More particularly, by e.g. folding in half, and then in half again, the lowermost one or more of the leaves of the notepad, to form a strip-shaped elongate bulge which underlies the marginal edge portions of the remainder of the leaves, the retention of the remainder of the leaves of the notepad in the notepad holder is considerably facilitated.
The advantageous effect of this bulge can be increased by providing an insert, e.g. in the form of a strip of flexible plastic material, in the bulge so that opposite ends of this strip press, at opposite sides of the notepad, against the resilient material to increase the retention of the lowermost leaf of the notepad.
REFERENCES:
patent: 4444319 (1984-04-01), Sharber
patent: 4884353 (1989-12-01), Taylor
patent: 5100178 (1992-03-01), MacKelvie
patent: D358846 (1995-05-01), Kirchhoff et al.
patent: 5427254 (1995-06-01), Knieriem
patent: 5480037 (1996-01-01), Pope
Harris Erica B.
Stodola Daniel P.
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