Patent Application
20230147753
The subject disclosure generally relates to signage, and more specifically to an apparatus and methodology for customizing vehicle signage.
By way of background concerning conventional vehicle signage, it is noted that commercial passenger transportation (e.g., busses, vans, etc.) is a multi-million dollar industry, wherein signage is used for any of a plurality of applications. For instance, vehicle signage is often used for advertising where such advertisements target passengers, as well as people from the general public. Indeed, since motor coaches are mobile, external signage provides a unique advertising opportunity to reach anyone that might see the motor coach along its route.
Vehicle signage is also used often to personalize a motor coach chartered for a particular group. Personalizing a motor coach with signage may be desirable for any of various reasons. For instance, a school may charter a bus for a school-related trip, wherein personalizing the bus with the school's mascot provides students, teachers, etc. with a sense of pride. Also, since such trips will often include different schools traveling to the same destination on different busses, personalizing a bus with school-specific signage makes it easier for passengers to find their bus.
Whether with respect to advertising and/or personalizing, however, several challenges exist with conventional vehicle signage methods. For instance, such signage is often difficult to view at night when there is dim light. Also, replacing the content of such signage from one advertising campaign to another often requires much labor and expense.
Currently, there is thus no effective solution to address at least these specific problems with conventional vehicle signage methods. Accordingly, it would be desirable to provide an apparatus and methodology which overcomes these limitations. To this end, it should be noted that the above-described deficiencies are merely intended to provide an overview of some of the problems of conventional systems, and are not intended to be exhaustive. Other problems with the state of the art and corresponding benefits of some of the various non-limiting embodiments may become further apparent upon review of the following detailed description.
A simplified summary is provided herein to help enable a basic or general understanding of various aspects of exemplary, non-limiting embodiments that follow in the more detailed description and the accompanying drawings. This summary is not intended, however, as an extensive or exhaustive overview. Instead, the sole purpose of this summary is to present some concepts related to some exemplary non-limiting embodiments in a simplified form as a prelude to the more detailed description of the various embodiments that follow.
In accordance with one or more embodiments and corresponding disclosure, various non-limiting aspects are described in connection with customizing vehicle signage. In one such aspect, a signage is disclosed which includes a frame, a mica cover, a light source, a logo component, and an attachment mechanism. Within such embodiment, the mica cover is positioned within a perimeter of the frame, and the light source is configured to direct light towards a backside of the mica cover. Furthermore, the logo component is positioned on the backside of the mica cover, in which the light source is configured to illuminate a logo by transmitting light through the logo component so that the illuminated logo is viewable from the frontside of the mica cover. The attachment mechanism is then configured to attach the signage to a vehicle.
Other embodiments and various non-limiting examples, scenarios and implementations are described in more detail below.
Various non-limiting embodiments are further described with reference to the accompanying drawings in which:
As discussed in the introduction, it would be desirable to address the specific problem of making vehicle signage more viewable when ambient light is dim and making the content of such signage more readily replaceable. The various embodiments disclosed herein are directed towards overcoming these limitations by providing a replaceable vehicle signage apparatus configured with a lighting mechanism. An exemplary embodiment of the vehicle signage apparatus disclosed herein is illustrated in
It is also contemplated that the signage 100 may be configured to include any of various lighting mechanisms. In an exemplary embodiment, it is thus contemplated that a logo displayed on the signage 100 may be viewable both in the daytime, as illustrated in
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Alternatively, in order to facilitate easy removal of the signage 800, it is contemplated that the magnetic attachment mechanism 850 may comprise at least one electropermanent magnet, wherein a switch 852 is configured to activate and deactivate a magnetic field of the at least one electropermanent magnet. Within such embodiment, it is further contemplated that the switch 852 may be coupled to a user interface which allows the user to enter security credentials to activate and deactivate the magnetic field. Such configuration might be desirable to avoid having the signage 800 stolen, for example, wherein the user interface may be any of a plurality of user interfaces known in the art (e.g., a keypad configured to receive an alphanumeric password, a biometric reader configured to perform a biometric reading, etc.).
The word “exemplary” is used herein to mean serving as an example, instance, or illustration. For the avoidance of doubt, the subject matter disclosed herein is not limited by such examples. In addition, any aspect or design described herein as “exemplary” is not necessarily to be construed as preferred or advantageous over other aspects or designs, nor is it meant to preclude equivalent exemplary structures and techniques known to those of ordinary skill in the art. Furthermore, to the extent that the terms “includes,” “has,” “contains,” and other similar words are used in either the detailed description or the claims, for the avoidance of doubt, such terms are intended to be inclusive in a manner similar to the term “comprising” as an open transition word without precluding any additional or other elements.
The aforementioned systems have been described with respect to interaction between several components. It can be appreciated that such systems and components can include those components or specified sub-components, some of the specified components or sub-components, and/or additional components, and according to various permutations and combinations of the foregoing. Sub-components can also be implemented as components coupled to other components rather than included within parent components (hierarchical). Additionally, it is noted that one or more components may be combined into a single component providing aggregate functionality or divided into several separate sub-components, and any one or more middle layers may be provided to couple to such sub-components in order to provide integrated functionality. Any components described herein may also interact with one or more other components not specifically described herein but generally known by those of skill in the art.
In view of the exemplary systems described supra, methodologies that may be implemented in accordance with the disclosed subject matter can be appreciated with reference to the various figures. While for purposes of simplicity of explanation, the methodologies are described as a series of steps, it is to be understood and appreciated that the disclosed subject matter is not limited by the order of the steps, as some steps may occur in different orders and/or concurrently with other steps from what is described herein. Moreover, not all disclosed steps may be required to implement the methodologies described hereinafter.
While the various embodiments have been described in connection with the exemplary embodiments of the various figures, it is to be understood that other similar embodiments may be used or modifications and additions may be made to the described embodiment for performing the same function without deviating there from. Therefore, the present invention should not be limited to any single embodiment.
This application is a continuation of U.S. patent application Ser. No. 17/105,273, filed Nov. 25, 2020, entitled “APPARATUS AND METHODOLOGY FOR CUSTOMIZING VEHICLE SIGNAGE,” which claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 62/940,803, filed Nov. 26, 2019, entitled “APPARATUS AND METHODOLOGY FOR CUSTOMIZING VEHICLE SIGNAGE”, wherein the entire contents of each of the aforementioned patent applications are hereby expressly incorporated by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62940803 | Nov 2019 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| Parent | 17105273 | Nov 2020 | US |
| Child | 18092108 | US |
