Patent Application
20120097510
1. Field of the Technology
The disclosure relates to the field of personal electronics and mobile device accessories, specifically to an apparatus for child proofing said personal electronics.
2. Description of the Prior Art
There are many tens of millions of Apple® iPhone®, iPad™, and iPod Touch® and other similar personal electronic devices being used all over the world. The vast majority of owners of Apple® iPhone®, iPad™, and iPod Touch® and other similar devices are adults, and many of these device owners have young children. Said personal electronic devices can download and play games and learning software applications intended for young and very young children. However, many of these devices have a prominent push button switch called the “home button,” which is directly accessible for young children. This is a problem because once the home button is pressed, young children leave the game or application and have full adult access to the device. Within seconds, young children can and do destroy important data on these devices by randomly touching the images on the touch screen. Examples of important data that can be deleted or altered include contacts in the address book, events in the calendar, photos, movies, electronic messages, and applications. Subsequent to pressing the home button, young children can also inadvertently send email messages or instant messages, place phone calls, and activate various other applications. Many manufacturers of personal electronic devices currently do not allow any software to disable the home button, nor do they offer any means to disable the home button. Currently, young children cannot play games on personal electronic devices without adults risking data destruction due to the prominence of the home button on all these personal electronic devices.
What is needed is a means for an adult to safely child proof their personal electronic device without sacrificing their own use of the device. Specifically the means should prevent a child from pressing the home button and inadvertently misusing the device while at the same time maintaining the device's function and ease of use for the adult.
The present invention solves the problem of children accessing adult functions of Apple® iPhone®, iPad™, and iPod Touch®, and other personal electronic devices by physically preventing young children from being able to active the home button. The current invention does this while still allowing adults to activate the home button and maintain access to the adult functions of their personal electronics device.
It is important to note that the present invention is applicable to any recessed push button switch, not just to buttons on Apple® iPhone®, iPad™, and iPod Touch® devices.
The current invention provides an apparatus for preventing the actuation of a recessed push button by a child user while maintaining the accessibility of the recessed push button for an adult user including an oval strip or cap with a top surface and a bottom surface. An adhesive layer is disposed on the bottom surface and the remaining portions of the cap are made of a semi-rigid material. The semi-rigid material is rigid enough to prevent the child user from bending the cap in a downward direction, but is soft or pliable enough for the adult user to bend the cap in the same downward direction.
In one embodiment, a hole is defined through the center of the cap.
In another embodiment, the top surface of the cap is comprised of a first laminate. A center laminate is then disposed beneath the first laminate, and the bottom surface of the cap is comprised of a second laminate disposed beneath the center laminate, forming a multi-layered cap. The first and second laminates are made of a first semi-rigid material with a first rigidity. The center laminate in turn is made of a second semi-rigid material with a second rigidity that is greater than the first rigidity of the first and second laminates. Additionally, the center laminate is located only in a center portion of the cap and is contained between the first and second laminate layers in a “sandwiched” configuration.
In one particular embodiment, a hole is defined through the first laminate, the center laminate, and the second laminate in the center of the cap.
In yet another embodiment, the bottom surface of the cap is sized to fit over the recessed push button of a personal electronics device or computing tablet. The cap is preferably approximately 1.25″ wide, approximately 0.5″ tall, and approximately 0.025″ thick. The hole defined in the cap in some select embodiments is preferably approximately 0.125″ in diameter.
In another embodiment, the adhesive layer on the bottom surface of the cap comprises a bittering agent.
The invention further provides a method for preventing the actuation of a recessed push button by a child user while maintaining the accessibility of the recessed push button for an adult user. The method includes disposing a semi-rigid cap over the recessed push button of a personal electronics device, removing a backing coupled to an adhesive layer disposed on a bottom surface of the cap, and applying the cap to the personal electronics device, directly over the recessed push button. The cap then prevents the actuation of the recessed push button by the child user and allows actuation of the recessed push button by the adult user.
In one embodiment, the method step of preventing the actuation of the recessed push button by the child user includes the child user depressing the semi-rigid cap and failing to deform the cap in the downward direction due to the rigidity of the cap.
In another embodiment, the method step of actuating the recessed push button by the adult user includes the adult user depressing the semi-rigid cap and overcoming the rigidity of the cap and deforming the cap in the downward direction, and then actuating the recessed push button with the deformed cap.
In yet another embodiment, the method step of actuating the recessed push button by the adult user includes inserting a paper clip or other pointed object through a hole defined in the semi-rigid cap and then actuating the recessed push button with the pointed object.
In one particular embodiment, the method further includes peeling the semi-rigid cap away from the personal electronics device. The cap may then also be reapplied to the personal electronics device or transferred to another personal electronics device.
In a separate embodiment, the cap is incorporated into a case for the personal electronics device. The case as is known in the art surrounds and protects the personal electronics device from physical impact and other outside elements while the cap prevents the home button from being actuated by a young user. The cap may be an attachment to the case, or alternatively, the case itself may be comprised of the same semi-rigid material as the cap as described above.
While the apparatus and method has or will be described for the sake of grammatical fluidity with functional explanations, it is to be expressly understood that the claims, unless expressly formulated under 35 USC 112, are not to be construed as necessarily limited in any way by the construction of “means” or “steps” limitations, but are to be accorded the full scope of the meaning and equivalents of the definition provided by the claims under the judicial doctrine of equivalents, and in the case where the claims are expressly formulated under 35 USC 112 are to be accorded full statutory equivalents under 35 USC 112. The disclosure can be better visualized by turning now to the following drawings wherein like elements are referenced by like numerals.
The disclosure and its various embodiments can now be better understood by turning to the following detailed description of the preferred embodiments which are presented as illustrated examples of the embodiments defined in the claims. It is expressly understood that the embodiments as defined by the claims may be broader than the illustrated embodiments described below.
In this embodiment shown in
In this embodiment seen in
It is to be expressly understood that the specific dimensions of the cap given above are for illustrative purposes only. A cap with dimensions varying from than those specifically listed above is expressly contemplated and is well within the original spirit and scope of the invention. Furthermore, the thickness of the cap may be varied to increase its rigidity for children of varying strengths and ages.
Many alterations and modifications may be made by those having ordinary skill in the art without departing from the spirit and scope of the embodiments. Therefore, it must be understood that the illustrated embodiment has been set forth only for the purposes of example and that it should not be taken as limiting the embodiments as defined by the following embodiments and its various embodiments.
Therefore, it must be understood that the illustrated embodiment has been set forth only for the purposes of example and that it should not be taken as limiting the embodiments as defined by the following claims. For example, notwithstanding the fact that the elements of a claim are set forth below in a certain combination, it must be expressly understood that the embodiments includes other combinations of fewer, more or different elements, which are disclosed in above even when not initially claimed in such combinations. A teaching that two elements are combined in a claimed combination is further to be understood as also allowing for a claimed combination in which the two elements are not combined with each other, but may be used alone or combined in other combinations. The excision of any disclosed element of the embodiments is explicitly contemplated as within the scope of the embodiments.
The words used in this specification to describe the various 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 in a claim must be understood as being generic to all possible meanings supported by the specification and by the word itself.
The definitions of the words or elements of the following claims are, therefore, defined in this specification to include not only the combination of elements which are literally set forth, but all equivalent structure, material 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 in the claims below or that a single element may be substituted for two or more elements in a claim. Although elements may be described above as acting in certain combinations and even initially claimed as such, it is to be expressly understood that one or more elements from a claimed combination can in some cases be excised from the combination and that the claimed combination may be directed to a subcombination or variation of a subcombination.
Insubstantial 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 equivalently within the scope of the claims. Therefore, obvious substitutions now or later known to one with ordinary skill in the art are defined to be within the scope of the defined elements.
The claims are thus to be understood to include what is specifically illustrated and described above, what is conceptionally equivalent, what can be obviously substituted and also what essentially incorporates the essential idea of the embodiments.
The present application is related to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/406,971, filed on Oct. 26, 2010, which is incorporated herein by reference and to which priority is claimed pursuant to 35 USC 119.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61406971 | Oct 2010 | US |
