Flexible or portable closure – partition – or panel – Plural strip – slat – or panel type – With mounting or supporting means
Reexamination Certificate
2000-07-13
2001-08-14
Johnson, Blair M. (Department: 3634)
Flexible or portable closure, partition, or panel
Plural strip, slat, or panel type
With mounting or supporting means
C160S201000, C160S280000, C016S08700B
Reexamination Certificate
active
06273175
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to overhead doors. More specifically, the present invention relates to an overhead door that is guided along a predetermined path of travel by a pair of tracks and is operable to disengage from the tracks when exposed to force of a predetermined magnitude, thereby preventing damage to the door, tracks, and surrounding structure.
Overhead doors have long been used to occlude openings in structures such as warehouses, factories, and the like. In addition, impact-resistant overhead doors such as those illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 4,676,293, issued to Hanssen, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,025,847, issued to Mueller, have been developed to absorb or otherwise reduce the destructive force of impacts to an overhead door, thereby preventing damage to the door and surrounding structure.
While these and other known doors have operated with some degree of success, they have several shortcomings. Specifically, the impact-resistant doors which are shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,025,847, are unduly cumbersome and complex. Complex door designs, of course, greatly increase the cost of manufacturing and maintaining such doors. Further, known release assemblies used in doors, while finding usefulness with specific types of overhead doors, such as industrial roll-up doors, have not been rendered useful for all types of doors including doors manufactured from rigid, panels.
Known devices suffer from additional problems. They often fail to release under some conditions, thereby causing damage to the door or surrounding structure, or in the alternative, a workman must spend time with various tools to reset, or otherwise readjust the door following impact. Many doors release in a specific direction only. Consequently, significant damage to the door will result if force is applied from the opposite direction.
Therefore, it would be desirable to have an overhead door that reliably moves along a predetermined path of travel to selectively occlude an opening in a structure and that releases from an associated track when exposed to force of a predetermined magnitude, thereby substantially preventing damage to the overhead door, track and surrounding structure.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
Therefore, it is an object of the present invention to proved an improved overhead door and tracks therefor.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an overhead door that is readily adaptable to nearly all common, building designs.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an overhead door that reliably releases from its tracks when exposed to force of a predetermined magnitude without damaging the associated track or surrounding structure.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an overhead door that is operable, in one form, to release when force is applied to either side of the door.
Another object of the present invention is to provide an overhead door that can be quickly and easily placed back into operation following disengagement from the associated track.
Still another object of the present invention is to provide an overhead door assembly which has an articulated, rigid panel construction and where the articulated, rigid panels have a light-weight construction in comparison to prior-art assemblies having substantially similar designs.
These and other objects and advantages are achieved in an overhead door that includes a pair of tracks which are mounted on an associated structure. Each of the tracks has an inwardly facing surface which defines a channel. A door panel is located intermediate the pair of tracks and is movable along a predetermined path of travel which is defined by the tracks. A release assembly borne by the door panel is operable to releasably engage at least one of the tracks and includes a moveable plunger which is received in the channel of one of the tracks and which facilitates the movement of the door panel along the path of travel and further disengages from the channel when force of a predetermined magnitude is applied to the door panel, thereby preventing the door panel and tracks from being damaged.
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Kellogg Kurt A.
Schirado William A.
Tich Michael I.
Yarke Gregory D.
Johnson Blair M.
Michael & Best & Friedrich LLP
United Dominion Industries, Inc.
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