Card – picture – or sign exhibiting – Signs – Stretched or tensioned
Reexamination Certificate
1999-07-20
2001-12-25
Dayoan, B. (Department: 3628)
Card, picture, or sign exhibiting
Signs
Stretched or tensioned
C040S604000, C040S610000, C160S135000, C248S165000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06332284
ABSTRACT:
The present invention refers to a display having a structure which can at will be folded or stretched or, in other terms, a stretchable structure, designed for displaying information panels, of the type which in particular is used for buidling up quickly mountable and dismountable stands, which are both lightweight and easily transportable from one exhibition to another.
Displays are known which easily can be stored in lightweight, compact bags because they include a stretchable structure consisting of articulated rods which can be mounted and assembled to form a ground support and receive flexible display panels, which can also be wrapped around themselves.
In a prior art display model, the thus shaped stretchable structure includes four rods, which, once they have been rigidly inserted into one another, define a rectangular frame resting on the ground by its four sides. It furthermore includes other rods to be assembled to the latter in order to constitute a support on which a single information panel can hang while being held tensioned in its display position. In order for this frame shaped foot base to be hidden behind the panel, its weight must be displaced towards the center of the polygon formed by the rectangular ground seating frame, which results in the display becoming quite complicated to operate, and the panel orientation compulsorily having to be slanted towards the rear with respect to the vertical.
Although the foot base and the support consist of lightweight tubular elements to be mounted by being inserted into one another while still remaining articulated and collapsible together by means of an internal elastic cord which permanently links them, those displays further suffer of the inconvenience that their usability is very limited. Not only can they only receive at any particular time one single fixed panel, tensioned between their extreme edges, but also they lack stability and need both high precision for their design and great care when being manipulated for their mounting and dismounting.
For panels which are naturally designed for being successively displayed in many manifestations, it is highly desirable to have a display with a stretchable structure which doesn't suffer from the above mentioned inconveniences and only requires, when folded, a space small enough to be housed in a small size box or bag, to be carried with one hand.
The invention meets these various needs of the industrial practice as well as others which will better appear in the following description. For this purpose, it realizes the stretchable panel reception structure by means of rods which, in a manner known per se in other fields (such as camping tents), consist of tubular elements, being insertable into one another in a butt relation and linked by a common internal elastic cord located inside said elements which allows a collapse of the rods upon themselves while maintaining the elements assembled by means of the elastic cord. The invention also provides that the panels to be displayed on the display can easily be separated from said structure proper and be stored, wrapped around themselves in a manner known per se.
The primary object of the invention consequently is a panel display having a stretchable structure made of articulated, tubular elements, insertable into one another and collapsible together and on a central assembling support designed for their mounting, whereas on the one hand some such relatively rigid elements obliquely diverge away from it so as to form a foot base with a ground seating shaped as a regular polygon, and whereas on the other hand some such elements form as many relatively flexible bows each of which will respectively support a panel which hangs from its upper edge while elastically flexing by virtue of the tension applied thereto by the panel.
According to a secondary feature of the invention, each panel is made of a fabric which can be wrapped around itself and has at each of two opposite end edges thereof a transverse bar with a connection in its middle for its dismountable fixation by hooking at the upper free end of a bow, and preferably as well to the ground support end of one of the foot base elements, in such a way that the panel is tensioned between said edges.
The foot base elements which consequently are the feet of the stretchable structure advantageously are regularly angularly distributed while diverging with the same slant with respect to the vertical defined by the assembling piece axis. They preferably are grouped three by three according to a rotational symmetrical distribution of a ternary order, so that the foot base constitutes a tripod, with a ground seating shaped as an equilateral triangle.
The stability of a display of such a structure is easily insured during its mounting, which avoids any inopportune loss of balance, which would cause the display to fall. Since the weight and dimensions of the various panels being used generally are at least close to one another, or often identical, they advantageously participate in this stability.
The panels will in practice automatically locate themselves so as to form a trihedron perpendicular to the foot plane. If their width is appropriately chosen in correspondence with the foot base, they will vertically and contiguously arrange themselves, thus hiding the stretched structure within a closed volume shaped as a right trihedron. The latter however only is an exemplary case of a right prism since the triangular base does not limit the invention, and the same operation and the same expected advantages from the invention can be found if the number of feet and bows is increased. In all cases, the mounting will thus be facilitated since the balance already initially brought by the ground support will not be broken at any time, inasmuch as the panels are, if needed, hanged one by one at the upper part before being tensioned by being hooked with the foot base at the lower part.
When dismounting the display, the structure panels are first unhooked to be stored wrapped around themselves, thus notably around one of the transverse bars which stiffen their extreme edges. Each of the elements constituting the structure is then pulled and disengaged from its insertion state by extending the internal elastic cord. While being brought to the folded position against one another around the central support, they however remain linked with one another by the internal elastic cord. Upon remounting, the elastic cords will again play their role by exerting a return effect, which immediately engages the insertion type fixation assemblies into their correct position. This allows easily and quickly mounting and dismounting the display without any risk of error.
According to an embodiment of the invention, the central support is shaped so as to insure that the feet will slantingly diverge, with respect to the vertical, by an angle between 25 and 70 degrees, and preferably between 30 and 60 degrees. Within this range, it is advantageous to design a possibility for two complementary foot bases, each of which will be mounted in the same central assembling support, but with a different slant and within angularly displaced planes.
The stretchable structure can thus be presented under at least two interchangeable versions, depending upon the foot set being used. The invention in particular preferably arranges for the same central support to be able alternatively combined with either a small tripod or a large tripod that differ from one another by the size of the ground seating triangle, which leads to a display being modulable according to the ground space to be occupied by the trihedral volume limited by the panels.
Advantageously, the central support will be designed, with respect to its main piece, so that the feet of one foot base will automatically be positioned in bisector planes with respect to the feet of the other foot base during the mounting phase. This arrangement for instance allows a possibility of displaying panels of various dimensions by choosing one or the other of the tripods, with feet ada
Chop Andrea
Dayoan B.
Millen White Zelano & Branigan P.C.
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