Patent Application
20130170938
This disclosure relates generally to a location and gripping assistance device and method of use, and more particularly to a unique gripping tab capable of attaching to an identification or credit card to provide an individual with an ergonomic and visually distinct gripping point with which to extract a particular card from the pocket or sleeve of the wallet, purse, or card holding device in which it is located thereby providing a more convenient method of card location and removal.
An average individual in modern society possesses several plastic or laminated cards. These cards are typically of a standard size and serve a wide variety of purposes including identification, proof of club or association membership, and/or to facilitate financial transactions. Often these cards are carried in a wallet, purse, or other card holding device configured with pockets or sleeves sized to accept such cards leaving only a portion of the cards' edge exposed so that a card may be identified, gripped, and removed from the sleeve or pocket when the individual wishes to present or use that particular card.
While card holding devices are well adapted to provide efficient and organized transportation of a plurality of cards, some individuals find using such devices inconvenient at times. This may be for a variety of reasons including difficulty locating a particular card among the plurality of cards that the individual carries or difficulty removing the particular card from the pocket or sleeve once located.
It is common to design the pockets or sleeves of a card holding device such that when a card is inserted into the pocket or sleeve only a portion of one edge of the card is exposed. Depending on the design of the pocket or sleeve, the exposed edge portion of the card may be very small. To locate a particular card within a card holding device, an individual must be able to recognize the color scheme or pattern of the exposed edge portion of the desired card. This can be challenging if an individual carries several cards with similar or identical color schemes or patterns. This difficulty may be further exacerbated if an individual's eye sight is poor or the lighting conditions are inadequate.
To mitigate these challenges, it is not uncommon for a card holding devices to be designed with multiple pockets or sleeves set forth in a cascading series with each successive pocket oriented slightly below the proceeding pocket or sleeve. This cascade orientation serves to expose a greater portion of each card, thereby assisting the individual to visually locate a particular desired card. It also serves to provide a greater surface area for gripping the particular card that the individual wishes to remove from the pocket or sleeve.
The cascade design, however, does not eliminate difficulty entirely because often times an individual will insert several cards into a single pocket or sleeve. This is common practice when an individual carries more cards than the card carrying device has pockets or sleeves. The cards that are located in the rearward position of each pocket or sleeve have little or no edge portion exposed so an individual has very limited means of locating the cards visually. To locate the rearward situated card an individual must either remember where card is located or systematically empty each pocket or sleeve until the particular desired card is found. Many find this process undesirable because it can be time consuming and/or awkward. There exists a need for an improved method of locating a desired card from within a card holding device, especially rearwardly situated cards.
The practice of placing multiple cards in a single pocket also increases the difficulty of removing a particular card after it is located. When successive cards are inserted into a single pocket or sleeve the fit becomes increasingly tighter thereby increasing the friction force with which the pocket or sleeve holds the cards. This may cause individuals to experience difficulty when attempting to grip the relatively small exposed edge portion of one of the forwardly situated cards and/or cause even greater difficulty when attempting remove one of the rearwardly situated cards without any exposed edge portion available to grip. Therefore, regardless of card position, it is typically more difficult to remove a card from a pocket or sleeve of a card holding device that is stretched tight by multiple cards.
Further, even when the pockets or sleeves are not stretched tight by multiple cards, card removal may still be cumbersome for some individuals. For example, some card holding devices are constructed with smaller pockets or sleeves that create a tight fit for even a single standard sized card.
Individuals with long fingernails often have difficulty removing a card with their finger tips whether the card is rearwardly situated or has an ample edge portion exposed. Similarly, individuals with arthritis in their hands may also experience excessive difficultly with the process of removing a particular card from a pocket or sleeve regardless of the card's position in the card carrying device. For these individuals and others, there exists a need for an ergonomically improved system of removing cards from the pockets or sleeves of typical card holding devices.
The present disclosure distinguishes over the related art providing heretofore unknown advantages as described in the following summary.
The present disclosure describes an improved method and apparatus for efficiently and conveniently locating and removing identification, membership, and/or banking cards from a card carrying device, such as a wallet, purse, or other card carrying device in which a plurality of cards are carried in pockets or sleeves.
The apparatus comprises a thin flat member featuring a gripping terminus at one distal end and a coupling implement at the opposing distal end. The coupling implement is capable of coupling the presently disclosed apparatus to a particular card in an orientation such that the gripping terminus is extended beyond the edge of the card in a direction away from the pocket or sleeve in which the card is inserted or intended to be inserted. This orientation situates the gripping terminus in a location that is typically more convenient to grip than the edge of the card itself. The length of the apparatus member and the location on the card at which the coupling implement is coupled may be varied to maximize convenience depending on the dimensions and style of the card carrying device.
The presently disclosed apparatus may also feature various ornamentally shaped gripping termini. This feature allows an individual to couple an apparatus with a different visually distinct ornamental gripping terminus to each of several cards the individual carries in his or her wallet, purse, or other card carrying device. The individual may then locate a specific card by locating the visual distinct ornamental gripping terminus that is coupled with that particular card. This method of card location may assist an individual visually locate even a rearwardly located card with relative ease because while the card may be completely or partially hidden from view, the visually distinct ornamental gripping terminus will be visible allowing the individual to locate the card.
The gripping terminus may be visually distinct through its ornamental shape, printed designs or words, or both. In some embodiments the gripping point may feature a logo or trademark. An individual may couple a bank or membership card with an apparatus that features the trademark or logo of the bank or organization that issued the card thereby lessening the burden of remembering which visually distinct ornamental gripping terminus is associated with which card.
The apparatus may be constructed from any material of sufficient tensile strength to withstand the tensile force of pulling a card from a pocket or sleeve. It is preferred that the apparatus be constructed from a material that is generally stiff but allows a moderate degree of flexibility. The stiffness is preferred so that the gripping terminus does not bend or fold over the card and that it stays located in a position that is visually apparent and ergonomically convenient to grip. The flexibility is preferred so that the apparatus does not damage the card it is coupled with or the surrounding cards during the normal motions a typical card carrying device experiences during use. Many plastics exhibit ideal physical characteristic for this purpose.
The width of the apparatus may vary, however, all embodiments should feature a member of a sufficiently thin and flat profile so as to easily fit between cards while situated in the pockets or sleeves of a card carrying device. The gripping terminus should be sufficiently sized to be gripped by an individual using the index finger and a thumb.
This disclosure teaches certain benefits in construction and use which give rise to the objectives described below.
A primary objective inherent in the above described apparatus and method is to increase the convenience of removing a card from the pocket or sleeve of a card holding device.
Another objective of the above described apparatus and method is to increase the convenience of locating a particular card from within a card holding device.
A further objective of the above described apparatus and method is to provide a means of assisting the removal of a card from a card holding device for those who have difficulty with the traditional means of removal.
A still further objective of the above described apparatus and method is to provide an additional mode of self expression by enabling an individual to personalize ones wallet, purse, or other card holding device.
Other features and advantages of the present invention will become apparent from the following more detailed description, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, which illustrate, by way of example, the principles of the presently described apparatus and method of its use.
The accompanying drawings illustrate various exemplary implementations and are part of the specification. The illustrated implementations are proffered for purposes of example not for purposes of limitation. Illustrated elements will be designated by numbers. Once designated, an element will be identified by the identical number throughout. Illustrated in the accompanying drawings is at least one of the best mode embodiments of the present disclosure. In such drawings:
The above described drawing figures illustrate an exemplary embodiment of an apparatus and method of use in at least one of its preferred, best mode embodiments, which is further defined in detail in the following description. Those having ordinary skill in the art may be able to make alterations and modifications to what is described herein without departing from its spirit and scope of the disclosure. Therefore, it must be understood that what is illustrated is set forth only for the purposes of example and that it should not be taken as a limitation in the scope of the present apparatus and method of use.
Described now in detail is an apparatus and method of efficiently locating and extracting a card such as an identification, membership, or banking card from a wallet, purse, or other card carrying device.
The coupling implement 20 depicted in
Each gripping terminus 30, regardless of its ornamental shape, should be sized appropriately to be conveniently gripped by an individual's index finger and thumb. Typically, the width of the gripping terminus 30 is the widest portion of the apparatus 10. However, in some embodiments of the apparatus 10 may feature a wider coupling implements 20 depending strength and nature of the coupling material and bond.
The enablements described in detail above are considered novel over the prior art of record and are considered critical to the operation of at least one aspect of the apparatus and its method of use, and to the achievement of the above-described objectives. The words used in this specification to describe the instant embodiments are to be understood not only in the sense of their commonly defined meanings, but to include by special definition in this specification: structure, material, or acts beyond the scope of the commonly defined meanings. Thus, if an element can be understood in the context of this specification as including more than one meaning, then its use must be understood as being generic to all possible meanings supported by the specification and by the word(s) describing the element.
The definitions of the words or drawing elements described herein are meant to include not only the combination of elements which are literally set forth, but all equivalent structures, materials or acts for performing substantially the same function in substantially the same way to obtain substantially the same result. In this sense it is therefore contemplated that an equivalent substitution of two or more elements may be made for any one of the elements described and its various embodiments or that a single element may be substituted for two or more elements in a claim.
Changes from the claimed subject matter as viewed by a person with ordinary skill in the art, now known or later devised, are expressly contemplated as being equivalents within the scope intended and its various embodiments. Therefore, substitutions, now or later known to one with ordinary skill in the art, are defined to be within the scope of the defined elements. This disclosure is thus meant to be understood to include what is specifically illustrated and described above, what is conceptually equivalent, what can be obviously substituted, and also what incorporates the essential ideas.
The scope of this description is to be interpreted only in conjunction with the appended claims and it is made clear, here, that the named inventor believes that the claimed subject matter is what is intended to be patented.
