Package and article carriers – Vehicle attached – Carrier attached to special purpose vehicle
Reexamination Certificate
2002-03-11
2003-12-16
Newhouse, Nathan J. (Department: 3727)
Package and article carriers
Vehicle attached
Carrier attached to special purpose vehicle
C224S499000, C224S501000, C224S510000, C224S521000, C108S044000, C296S026050, C296S026090, C296S026130
Reexamination Certificate
active
06662983
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
This invention relates to a multi-configuration, multi-purpose rack system for transporting a large variety of objects on a vehicle, and a novel and unique means to package, ship, display and store the rack system.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
There are a variety of vehicle racks on the market, however most are single use, e.g., bike racks, ski racks, etc. A few racks claim to be multi-purpose, however they become multi-purpose only with the inclusion of added-cost accessories. The new Reese/Draw-Tite “Dual Port System” carries this to the extreme, having 11 accessories, only two of which are capable of being used for more than a single purpose (see at “dualportsystem.com”). Both Porter, et. al., U.S. Pat. No. 5,460,304, and Goodness, U.S. Pat. No. 5,842,615, claim a “modular vehicle [carrier/rack] system”. Both become multi-functional only by adding extra-cost accessories.
Stein, U.S. Pat. No. 6,010,049 claims, “A vehicle receiver mounted cargo carrier is readily configured to transport bicycles, skies and poles, canoes, snowboards, canoe paddles and other cargo through the use of a vertical frame into which various rods may be placed, at locations most suited for the specific cargo.” While Stein's basic rack can be configured in several variations of a single design theme to carry primarily, light weight and flat objects, e.g., skies, his design also requires added-cost accessories to carry the bicycles and canoe he claims.
Darby's U.S. Pat. No. 5,950,890 is unique in that it can be used as both a bed extender for a pickup and as the rear portion of a roof-height carrier. This design, while being dual purpose, suffers from the inherent size and non-extensibility of the members: to be tall enough to reach from a receiver trailer hitch to the top of the roof rack of the tallest SUV, one side of his “L”-section must be well over four feet long. In addition, his “T” bar is non-extensible and must also be over four feet long in order to carry four-foot wide sheet goods. These sizes pose problems for packaging and shipping, and their non-extensibility limits the applications since some vehicles will be either too tall or too short to accommodate these non-extensible members. In addition, Darby claims that his rack requires “only a small amount of storage space such as behind the seat of a pickup truck.” His design makes no provision for housing these large pieces behind the seat, so they would be free to rattle and move about, possibly being thrown violently from side to side within the vehicle during emergency maneuvers or on a curvy road. This could damage the truck and could potentially injure passengers. Further, due to their size, there is no convenient way to carry these pieces in a van or SUV.
Bagley's U.S. Pat. No. 6,237,824 claims to be a “rack system” because it can be used “for carrying canoes, bikes, or luggage type items”, however his design results in one piece being used to carry bikes and another piece being used to carry the rear portion of a canoe or other long object. Both, or either of these separate, unrelated pieces can be attached to a vertical mast, but neither is integrated with the other. Bagley does claim a “substantially rigid . . . panel being positionable on” the bicycle carrying rods. This rigid panel is only an accessory to the his core “rack system” and suffers from several deficiencies: 1) the width of materials which can be carried on his panel is restricted by the width of the bike rack portion of his invention (typically these bike carrying rods are about eighteen inches apart); 2) a rigid panel poses problems for shipping and storage; 3) Bagley's panel cannot be attached to his lower “support arm” which limits the lowest height at which the panel can be utilized, and thus reduces the convenience of placing objects on the panel; 4) it is obvious from Bagley's design that the carrying capacity of this rigid panel is quite limited; and, 5) Bagley makes no provision for carrying his rack in a vehicle, or for easy storage at the owner's home. By combining several of the functions, e.g., carrying both a canoe and bicycles, his rack can be configured in a maximum of five separate ways.
(In the following sections, reference will be made to
FIGS. 12A-12T
, which are schematic representations of the 20 most useful and practical configurations of the current invention. In each of these 20 figures, the line projecting to the left represents the connection point to a receiver hitch. Eleven of the figures have short line segments at right angles to and bisecting a longer line—these represent connection points between various pieces of the rack system.
FIGS. 12D
, E, F & R represent the folding platform resting on the horizontal segment of the crossbar and on the elongate members. The reader may wish to familiarize himself/herself with all of the FIGS. associated with this application before proceeding.)
This co-inventor's U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,004 is the only prior art which is a true multi-configuration, multi-purpose rack, whose parts can be assembled in multiple ways to form a variety of configurations for carrying a wide variety of objects without resorting to added-cost accessories. That design could be configured in only seven ways—see
FIGS. 12A
, B, C, D, E, H & I, whereas the current invention can be configured in 20 separate and useful ways, see FIGS.
12
A-
12
T—a tripling of the number of configurations. Since U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,004 was issued, a great deal of time and engineering effort have gone into increasing the flexibility of the rack system while reducing the number of parts needed and greatly simplifying the overall construction of the rack system, e.g., each of the five metal pieces consists of only two simple pieces of metal tubing welded together. The only machining required is drilling holes and grinding some of the welds smooth, which keeps manufacturing costs to a minimum.
The current invention consists of the following changes to U.S. Pat. No. 5,820,004: replacing the novel, anti-wobble connector to a receiver hitch with a much simpler, but still novel, anti-wobble connector; replacing the novel, anti-wobble attachment means and the vertical bar with an “L” shaped member; reducing the height of the vertical bar/“L” shaped member; the addition of an extension bar to the “L” shaped member; adding the same type novel connector means used between the “L” shaped member and a hitch receiver to the connection between the “L” shaped member and the extension, and to the connection between the crossbar as it attaches to either the “L” shaped member or the extension to prevent wobble between these pieces; lengthening the slide means of each of the elongate members and changing the connection between each of the weight bearing segments and its attendant slide means producing an asymmetry with more of the slide means on one side of the elongate member than on the other side; sizing the weight bearing segment of each elongate member to telescopically slide into an end of the horizontal segment of the crossbar; changing the elongate members so that each is the mirror image of the other; a reduction in the length of the horizontal segment of the crossbar, and a slight, but important change to the configuration of the crossbar to allow it to be used to transport large sheet goods, e.g., a sheet of plywood, without damaging the sheet goods. The result of all these changes is to make the five metal pieces of the rack system simpler and less expensive to manufacture, sturdier and safer, easier to assemble, and much more flexible in the number of separate configurations it can assume, and therefore in the number and variety of objects it can carry. When used with an optional roof rack, the current invention can transport virtually every type of sports equipment, including bikes, skis, snowboards, canoes, kayaks, surf and sail boards, as well as practical items such as lumber and building supplies up to 5 m. (16 ft) long and up to 135 kg. (300 lbs). The current invention can also carr
Lane David A. M.
Lean John R.
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