Land vehicles: wheels and axles – Wheel – With wheel cover
Reexamination Certificate
1999-11-19
2002-11-26
Morano, S. Joseph (Department: 3617)
Land vehicles: wheels and axles
Wheel
With wheel cover
C301S037104
Reexamination Certificate
active
06485106
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. The Field of the Invention
The present invention is in the field of protective wheel rim masks used to shield or protect a wheel rim when applying a liquid dressing to a tire. More particularly, the present invention relates to adjustable protective wheel rim masks that can be size customized in order to protect wheels of varying diameter.
2. The Relevant Technology
It is become common practice during detailing of cars, trucks, and other vehicles to beautify the tires by applying a liquid dressing thereto in order to clean, darken and shine the tires, thereby giving the tires a newer, more classy, appearance. In addition to enhancing the appearance of the tires and overall vehicle, the tire dressing can also protect and prolong the life of the tires.
A typical tire dressing comprises a water-in-oil emulsion having a milky appearance and including a special oil-based protectant. One such tire dressing is sold under the trademark ARMORALL®, a trademark of the McKesson Corporation, located in Irvine, Calif.
A popular method for applying tire dressings in liquid form is from a spray bottle. While this application method is efficient in placing a desired quantity of the tire dressing over a broad area in a short period of time, it nevertheless can create a problem of overspray. That is, spraying of the tire often inadvertently results in spraying of the metal wheel rim, thus leaving an undesired oily residue on the tire rim. Because the tire dressing is generally brake dust and road grime, all of which quickly make the wheel rim unsightly. Moreover, the oily tire dressing often becomes gummy and difficult to remove, thus requiring the use of strong detergents and vigorous scrubbing. This, ironically, usually has the effect of stripping off the tire dressing from the tire, thus undermining the whole purpose for applying the tire dressing in the first place.
In order to provide the user with the ability to mask or protect the wheel rim during the application of a tire dressing, several wheel rim covers have been proposed. Wheel rim covers such as those disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 5,524,972 to Cailor et al. and U.S. Pat. No. 4,811,991 to Marino et al. are hand-held devices that can be held in place over the wheel rim with one hand while the user applies tire dressing to the tire with the other. U.S. Pat. No. 4,874,206 to Sampson, U.S. Pat. No. 5,423,599 to Sherod et al., and U.S. Pat. No. 4,955,670 to Koller disclose wheel rim covers that include attachment means so that such protective covers can be secured to the wheel rim to free up both hands of the user.
Whereas any of the foregoing wheel rim covers may provide adequate protection from tire dressing being applied to the wheel rim, such protective covers are not readily adjustable to fit a plurality of differently sized wheel rims. Whereas U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,524,972, 4,955,670 and 4,874,206 purport to disclose “adjustable” wheel rim covers, the so-called “adjustability” of such wheel rim covers is provided by the requirement that the user cut away a predetermined portion of the outer circumference in order for the wheel cover to “adjust” to, and thereby fit, a particular wheel rim size. Unfortunately, such “adjustment” is one way. Once “adjusted” to fit a smaller wheel rim, such wheel rim covers cannot later be “re-adjusted” so as to fit larger wheel rims. Thus, a person will not be able to repeatedly use such wheel rim covers for differently-sized wheels, thus realistically requiring a person to purchase multiple wheel rim covers, one for each size wheel, if the person owns multiple cars having differing wheel rim sizes. Moreover, trimming away a portion of the wheel rim cover can be tedious, inexact, and result in the formation of sharp or jagged edges.
In order to provide universal “adjustability”, U.S. Pat. No. 5,785,389 to Bradford discloses a hand held wheel cover that essentially comprises a pie-shaped wedge portion attached to a handle. In use, the Bradford cover is rotated around the edge of the tire rim in order to provide localized protection from tire dressing overspray. However, protecting the rim using the device of Bradford appears to be both cumbersome and inexact, since the user is required to move the pie-shaped wedge portion around the entire 360° of the wheel rim. Thus, whatever convenience is provided by the “adjustability” feature of the Bradford device is offset by the necessity to rotate the Bradford device between each squirt of tire dressing. Thus, the Bradford device does not allow for a single masking step followed by spraying tire dressing on the entire tire, but requires a step-wise application.
In view of the foregoing, it would be an advancement in the art to provide an improved wheel rim protective mask that could be adjusted to protect a plurality of differently-sized wheel rims.
It would be an additional improvement in the art to provide wheel rim protective masks that could be adjusted both upwardly and downwardly in order to provide protection for both larger and smaller rims once the protective mask has been sized to fit an intermediate-sized rim.
It would be a further improvement in the art to provide a wheel rim protective mask that could be readily and repeatedly adjusted to fit a variety of differently-sized wheel rims with a minimum of effort.
Finally, it would be a tremendous improvement in the art to provide a wheel rim protective mask that provided for ease of adjustment but which was capable of covering and masking the entire wheel rim at the same time, and in a single placement step, prior to applying tire dressing to the entire tire.
Such adjustable wheel rim protective covers are disclosed in claims herein.
SUMMARY AND OBJECTS OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to adjustable wheel rim masks for protecting a wheel rim during the application of a tire dressing to the surrounding tire. More particularly, the present invention encompasses size-adjustable wheel rim masks that can be adjusted to fit a variety of differently-sized wheel rims with a minimum of effort. Once adjusted to an intermediate wheel rim size, the size adjustable wheel rim masks of the present invention are upwardly and downwardly adjustable to cover larger and smaller wheel rims, respectively.
In order to provide the aforementioned adjustability feature, the wheel rim masks of the present invention preferably comprise a generally circular disk or disk-like sheet made of a sufficiently durable and chemical resistant material so as to provide adequate protection of a wheel rim when a tire dressing is applied to the surrounding tire. The circular disk includes a radial gap, such as a slit, extending from at or near the center point to the outer circumferential edge in order to allow the two adjoining sides of the disk to overlap each other in order to form the disk into a cone or cone-shaped configuration. This has the effect of reducing the effective circumference and diameter of the resulting cone-shaped configuration compared to an original flat configuration. Depending on how far one side of the disk is overlapped over the other, the circumference and diameter of the resulting cone can vary as desired in order to match or correspond to the circumference of a particular wheel rim to be masked.
In order to lock the cone-shaped wheel mask in a desired configuration so as to have a desired circumference and diameter, an adjustment locking means is provided. In a preferred embodiment, the locking means comprises a series of snaps on one side of the radial gap that can mechanically interact with one or more corresponding snaps on the other side of the radial gap so as to “snap”, and thereby lock, the cone in a particular configuration. For example, a series of male snaps may advantageously be spaced apart at a predetermined location near the outer circumferential edge of the disk-shaped structure on one side of the radial gap. On the other side of the radial gap a corresponding female snap may be oriented so as to enable the overlapping side of the disk to be locked in place relat
Hermansen Brett Lee
Van Woerkom Steven Glen
Morano S. Joseph
Nguyen Long
Workman & Nydegger & Seeley
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