Card – picture – or sign exhibiting – Calendars
Reexamination Certificate
1999-06-03
2001-08-07
Knight, Anthony (Department: 3628)
Card, picture, or sign exhibiting
Calendars
C040S110000, C040S426000, C446S129000, C446S133000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06269563
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention pertains to the field of perpetual calendars and more particularly concerns a free standing or wall hung permanent calendar structure incorporating concealed permanent magnets supporting a string pointer.
2. State of the Prior Art
Perpetual calendars are devices which require periodic adjustment to display a combination of data which together make up a calendar date. For example, a perpetual calendar may show day-of-week, day-of-month and month-of-year data. The perpetual calendar is equipped with an indicator device which permits the user to select or point to a particular combination of day-of-week datum, day-of-month datum and month-of-year datum and thereby display a calendar date. This display must be updated periodically by the user.
Perpetual calendars have been known since antiquity and innumerable arrangements have been devised, limited only by human ingenuity and imagination and ranging from mundane utilitarian objects to inspired works of art. Creativity in this field is far from exhausted and a continuing demand exists for intriguing new designs.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
The present invention is a perpetual calendar includes one or more calendar data displays, each display covering a subset of calendar data such as day-of-week, day-of-month, month-of-year and year. The one or more displays are arranged on a calendar structure which may be free standing or wall hung.
Two types of calendar data displays may be combined in the perpetual calendar of this invention: a levitated display featuring a magnetically levitated pointer and a bar display with a sliding indicator.
The levitated display includes a first number of datum locations and an anchor point on the calendar structure. At each datum location is indicated, as by printed lettering or numerals, one datum of the calendar data subset. A fixed magnetic attractor is located at each of the datum locations and a movable magnetic attractor is secured to a free end of a flexible cord, such as a plastic or nylon line or a string. The opposite end of the cord is attached to the anchor point. The length of the cord is such that it is held taut with the movable attractor suspended near a datum location on the calendar structure because of magnetic attraction between a fixed attractor and the movable attractor. The suspended movable attractor and the taut cord serve as an indicator or pointer towards a selected datum location. This pointer can be easily repositioned from one to another datum location just by pushing the movable magnetic attractor away from the attractive force of one fixed attractor and into the force field of another fixed attractor. The fixed and movable attractors may be a pair of small permanent magnets, or a permanent magnet paired with a ferromagnetic metal element such as a steel or iron element. Electromagnets may be substituted for permanent magnets, and the electromagnets may be electronically controlled for automatic calendar opertation.
For aesthetic appearance the fixed attractors may be concealed in the calendar structure. Likewise, the moving attractor may be concealed inside an indicator body of appealing exterior form, for example, a sphere or other regular geometric body.
It is preferable that the fixed attractors be arranged in an arc centered about the anchor point, so that the anchor point is equidistant to all of the datum locations and the moving attractor remains equally spaced to each datum location as it is moved from one datum to another. For example, the calendar structure may include an arc portion with the datum locations spaced along the arc.
A useful perpetual calendar should display at least two data elements, such as day-of-month and month-of-year. For this reason the calendar structure may include more than one calendar data display, at least one of which is a levitated indicator, each display covering a different subset of calendar data.
In one calendar configuration, two different data subsets can be arranged along separate arc portions each with a magnetically levitated pointer. For example, the separate arc portions may be two arc segments spaced apart on a closed ring structure, or two concentric half-circles of different diameters on a common base.
The bar display may include a straight or curved bar with a subset of data presented at datum locations spaced along a slide surface of the bar display. The bar display also has paired magnetic attractors including one or more fixed magnetic attractors along the slide surface and a movable magnetic attractor continuously displaceable along the slide surface. The fixed attractor may be either a continuous magnetic strip so that the movable attractor is retained magnetically while sliding against the slide surface, or may consist of discrete magnetic attractors positioned at each of the datum locations along the slide surface so as to attract the movable magnetic attractor to each datum location. In either case the movable magnetic attractor is positionable at any one of the datum locations along the slide surface as a visual pointer to a second calendar datum on the bar display. The bar and the slide surface may be a straight bar or a curved bar of arbitrary curvature, such as a sinusoidal wave.
Attractive calendar structures can be devised by combining a levitated display intersected by a bar display in various configurations and arrangements.
REFERENCES:
patent: 774325 (1904-11-01), Illing
patent: 3235260 (1966-02-01), Glass et al.
patent: 3307850 (1967-03-01), Thomas
patent: 3707290 (1972-12-01), Birnkrant
patent: 4178707 (1979-12-01), Littlefield
patent: 4211414 (1980-07-01), Moodt
patent: 4308678 (1982-01-01), Slobin
patent: 4723232 (1988-02-01), Beebe
patent: 5058296 (1991-10-01), Notzel
patent: 5060947 (1991-10-01), Hall
patent: 602604 (1948-05-01), None
Beehler & Pavitt
Chop Andrea
Epstein Natan
Knight Anthony
LandOfFree
Perpetual calendar does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Perpetual calendar, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Perpetual calendar will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2480289