Static structures (e.g. – buildings) – Animal blocking lateral projection – trap – or scarer
Reexamination Certificate
1999-10-19
2001-06-26
Chen, Jose V. (Department: 3635)
Static structures (e.g., buildings)
Animal blocking lateral projection, trap, or scarer
Reexamination Certificate
active
06250023
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
This invention relates to bird proofing assemblies, and more particularly to a device for preventing birds from landing on certain surfaces.
2. Background Art
Birds often try to land on even the narrowest surfaces that they can find on outer structures of buildings, window sashes, sills, ledges, statues, wall ridges, roof gutters, portals, bridges, towers, masts, etc.
This alighting and resting is a nuisance in that the birds, through their droppings, dirty and damage not only the landing surface, but also all outer structures of the building that are underneath.
Due to aesthetic reasons and also to avoid irreversible damaging of the structure material, one is often obliged to deal with frequent and expensive renovation work of the damaged parts of the building.
Besides, such a building is quite often located next to human activities. This is for example the case in cities, where such birds' droppings as well as birds' cries might commercially impact a whole area, whether it be a living area, a mall area or restaurants.
One of the most efficient ways of preventing this nuisance consists in covering surfaces with a device comprising a bottom base support from which extend upwardly birds' dissuasive spike elements.
It can be demonstrated that such a device does not hurt the birds but only prevents alighting and resting.
Such a device is described in U.S. Pat. No. 5,400,552. Unfortunately, the device disclosed therein has at least two drawbacks. First, the spikes are secured in canals by flattening out a portion of each spike adjacent the end to be held in the canal. Flattened out portions are made to extend in only two directions from the axis of the spike, thereby creating a press-fit engagement with the canal along two distinct lines. It would be preferred if the engagement between spike and canal were more evenly distributed around the entire radial surface of the spike to provide a more secure and structurally sound interface. Second, the spikes all extend in parallel from the base, such as straight up from the base in a direction perpendicular to the underlying surface. It would be preferred to have the spikes directed at different angles to increase the volumetric efficacy of the spikes, but in a manner that does not increase cost of fabrication.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is therefore an object of the present invention to provide a system to overcome the above mentioned drawbacks. The system according to the present invention comprises a base support attached to a surface to be protected against birds alighting. Dissuasive spike elements extend from a side of the base support, opposite to the side attached to the surface to be protected. The base support features canals and each spike includes a knurled portion. The knurled portion is obtained by a knurling process of the material of which each spike element is made and results in a maximum size slightly larger than the diameter of the canals. The spike elements are then forced into the canals so as to ensure fastening of the spike elements to the base support. In a preferred embodiment, the center spike is straight while offset spikes are bent to extend from the canal at a selected angle to provide a radial array of spikes. Each canal is provided with bend radius to facilitate the bending of a spike. The radial surface of the knurled portion extends around the entire circumference of the spike to achieve the desired distributed interface of spike and canal surfaces not found in the prior art. Moreover, the bend radius built into each canal provides a useful way to distribute spikes over different angles while permitting machine fabrication without increasing labor-related costs.
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