Static structures (e.g. – buildings) – Cover with surface water receiver at eave or valley – With separator; e.g. – strainer
Reexamination Certificate
2001-08-07
2003-07-29
Friedman, Carl D. (Department: 3635)
Static structures (e.g., buildings)
Cover with surface water receiver at eave or valley
With separator; e.g., strainer
C052S098000, C248S048100, C210S474000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06598352
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND
1. Field of the Invention
Gutter covering systems are known to prevent debris from entering into the open top end of a rain gutter.
When debris accumulates within the body of a rain gutter in an amount great enough to cover the opening of a downspout-draining hole the draining of water from the rain gutter is impeded or completely stopped. This occurrence will cause the water to rise within the rain gutter and spill over it's uppermost front and rear portions. The purpose of a rain gutter: to divert water away from the structure and foundation of a home is thereby circumvented.
2. Prior Art
The invention relates to the field of Gutter Anti-clogging Devices and particularly relates to screens with affixed fine filter membranes, and to devices that employ recessed wells or channels in which filter material may be inserted, affixed to gutters to prevent debris from impeding the desired drainage of water.
Various gutter anti-clogging devices are known in the art and some are described in issued patents.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,557,891 to Albracht teaches a gutter protection system for preventing entrance of debris into a rain gutter. Albracht teaches a gutter protection system to include a single continuous two sided well with angled sides and perforated bottom shelf
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into which rainwater will flow and empty into the rain gutter below. The well is of a depth, which is capable of receiving a filter mesh material. However, attempts to insert or cover such open channels of “reverse-curve” devices with filter meshes or cloths is known to prevent rainwater from entering the water receiving channels. This occurrence exists because of the tendency of such membranes, (unsupported by a proper skeletal structure), to channel water, by means of water adhesion along the interconnected paths existing in the filter membranes (and in the enclosures they may be contained by or in), past the intended water-receiving channel and to the ground. This occurrence also exists because of the tendency of filter mediums of any present known design or structure to quickly waterproof or clog when inserted into such channels creating even greater channeling of rainwater forward into a spill past an underlying rain gutter. Filtering of such open, recessed, channels existing in Albracht's invention as well as in U.S. Pat. No. 5,010,696, to Knittel, U.S. Pat. No. 2,672,832 to Goetz, U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,459,350, & 5,181,350 to Meckstroth, U.S. Pat. No. 5,491,998 to Hansen, U.S. Pat. No. 4,757,649 to Vahldieck and in similar “reverse-curved” inventions that rely on “reverse-curved” surfaces channeling water into an open channel have been known to disallow entrance of rainwater into the water-receiving channels. Albracht's as well as previous and succeeding similar inventions have therefore notably avoided the utilization of filter insertions. What may appear as a logical anticipation by such inventions at first glance, (inserting of a filter mesh or material into the channel), has been shown to be undesirable and ineffective across a broad spectrum of filtering materials: Employing insertable filters into such inventions has not been found to be a simple matter of anticipation, or design choice of filter medium by those skilled in the arts. Rather, it has proved to be an ineffective option, with any known filter medium, when attempted in the field. Such attempts, in the field, have demonstrated that the filter mediums will eventually require manual cleaning.
German Patent 5,905,961 teaches a gutter protection system for preventing the entrance of debris into a rain gutter. The German patent teaches a gutter protection system to include a single continuous two sided well 7 with angled sides and perforated bottom shelf which rainwater will flow and empty into the rain gutter below. The well is recessed beneath and between two solid lateral same plane shelves close to the front of the system for water passage near and nearly level with the front top lip of the gutter. The well is of a depth, which is capable of receiving a filter mesh material. However, for the reasons described in the preceding paragraphs, an ability to attach a medium to an invention, not specifically designed to utilize such a medium, may not result in an effective anticipation by an invention. Rather, the result may be a diminishing of the invention and its improvements as is the case in Albracht's U.S. Pat. No. 5,557,891, the German Patent, and similar inventions employing recessed wells or channels between adjoining planes or curvatures.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,595,027 to Vail teaches a continuous opening 24A between the two top shelves. Vail teaches a gutter protection system having a single continuous well 25, the well having a depth allowing insertion and retention of filter mesh material 26 (a top portion of the filler mesh material capable of being fully exposed at the holes). Vail does teach a gutter protection system designed to incorporate an insertable filter material into a recessed well. However, Vail notably names and intends the filter medium to be a tangled mesh fiberglass five times the thickness of the invention body. This type of filtration medium, also claimed in U.S. Pat. No. 4,841,686 to Rees, and in prior art currently marketed as FLOW-FREE. TM. is known to trap and hold debris within itself which, by design, most filter mediums are intended to do, i.e.: trap and hold debris. Vail's invention does initially prevent some debris from entering an underlying rain gutter but gradually becomes ineffective at channeling water into a rain gutter due to the propensity of their claimed filter mediums to clog with debris. Though Vail's invention embodies an insertable filter, such filter is not readily accessible for cleaning when such cleaning is necessitated. The gutter cover must be removed and uplifted for cleaning and, the filter medium is not easily and readily inserted replaced into its longitudinal containing channel extending three or more feet. It is often noted, in the field, that these and similar inventions hold fast pine needles in great numbers which presents an unsightly appearance as well as create debris dams behind the upwardly extended and trapped pine needles. Such filter meshes and non-woven lofty fiber mesh materials, even when composed of finer micro-porous materials, additionally tend to clog and fill with oak tassels and other smaller organic debris because they are not resting, by design, on a skeletal structure that encourages greater water flow through its overlying filter membrane than exists when such filter meshes or membranes contact planar continuously-connected surfaces. Known filter mediums of larger openings tend to trap and hold debris. Known filter mediums smaller openings clog or “heal over” with pollen and dirt that becomes embedded and remains in the finer micro-porous filter mediums. At present, there has not been found, as a matter of common knowledge or anticipation, an effective water-permeable, non-clogging “medium-of-choice” that can be chosen, in lieu of claimed or illustrated filter mediums in prior art, that is able to overcome the inherent tendencies of any known filter mediums to clog when applied to or inserted within the types of water receiving wells and channels noted in prior art.
Vail also discloses that filter mesh material 26 is recessed beneath a planar surface that utilizes perforations in the plane to direct water to the filter medium beneath. Such perforated planar surfaces as utilized by Vail, by Sweers U.S. Pat. No. 5,555,680, by Morin U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,311 and by similar prior art are known to only be partially effective at channeling water downward through the open apertures rather than forward across the body of the invention and to the ground. This occurs because of the principal of water adhesion: rainwater tends to flow around perforations as much as downward through them, and miss the rain gutter entirely. Also, in observing perforated planes such as utilized by Vail and similar inventions (where rainwater experiences its first contac
Friedman Carl D.
Glessner Brian E.
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