Winding – tensioning – or guiding – Coil holder or support – Mounted coil holder or spindle
Reexamination Certificate
1998-05-04
2001-07-31
Walsh, Donald P. (Department: 3653)
Winding, tensioning, or guiding
Coil holder or support
Mounted coil holder or spindle
C242S419400, C242S598500, C225S051000, C225S084000, C225S106000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06267322
ABSTRACT:
SUMMARY OF INVENTION
The device enables one to tear off with one hand any length of a flexible sheet material, typically toilet paper or kitchen towel, from a roll at a line of weakness (perforation) in the sheet. It consists of a stable “cradle” and a movable “pallet”. Pulling away from the roll, the sheet material is freely unwound from the roll. Changing the direction of the pull will cause the pallet to grab the sheet, and thereby prevent further unwinding of the sheet. Increasing the pull will allow any piece of the sheet material to be separated from the roll along a line of weakness.
SPECIFICATION
Various flexible sheet materials are marketed in the form of strips rolled up usually on a paper tube. To facilitate the separation of pieces of the sheet from the roll, the manufacturers, as a rule, provide lines of weakness (e.g., perforations) in the sheet at regular intervals. Toilet papers and paper kitchen towels are the most common examples of such flexible sheet products. In the following discussions, the term “the roll” will be used for the sake of brevity to denote any kind of flexible sheet material marketed in rolls.
People are often annoyed by the fact that tearing off a suitable length of the sheet from the roll requires both hands: one to pull the material off the roll, and the other to hold the roll to prevent it from overspinning on the spindle on which the roll is usually placed, when the pull is increased in order to separate a piece of required length from the roll. It often happens that one hand of the user is dirty or wet, and therefore the paper still on the roll may become dirty, unsanitary, or weakened by moisture.
Many suggestions have already been made to allay the problem of overspinning. Devices have been described in U.S. Pat. No. 2,699,903, U.S. Pat. No. 3,739,965, U.S. Pat. No. 4,660,781, U.S. Pat. No. 4,913,364, U.S. Pat. 4,919,350, U.S. Pat. No. 5,215,274, U.S. Pat. No. 5,249,755, etc. Clearly, to successfully cope with the problem it is essential to brake or check the spinning of the roll at the moment the tearing force is applied. Several difficulties have been encountered, however, with the suggested solutions. Among them: the device may not provide sufficient braking effect at all possible weight or size of the roll, or the length of the piece torn off may be limited to one unit length between two lines of weakness in the sheet, or the device may be complicated and costly.
The device to be described here is simple, reliable, and allows the user to separate from the roll any length of the sheet material measured in multiples of the unit size marked by the lines of weakness (perforations).
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Marcelo Emmanuel M.
Walsh Donald P.
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