Patent Application
20130298307
The disclosed invention concerns public occasions where a person dresses in “formal”, “semiformal”, or “business” attire that normally but not necessarily includes (1) a shirt with buttons on the front and a lay-down collar on whose front is mounted a tie or bowtie, and (2) a tuxedo, suit, or sportjacket that is worn with said shirt and tie.
Bowties have a prominent if subtle place in our society. They are standard neckwear for tuxedos which are generally worn by classical musicians, waiters, attendees of formal dinner parties, grooms and ushers at weddings, and hosts and recipients at award ceremonies. Less formally, bowties are a socially acceptable substitute for ties wherever a person may wear a jacket and tie; and this abbreviated neckwear has been associated with architects, lawyers, professors, magicians, politicians, newspaper editors, high-school principals, bachelor English teachers, country doctors, and pediatricians (they often wear bowties so infants can't grab them the way they could neckties). Aside from formal occasions, wearing a bowtie is generally considered to indicate intelligence, fastidiousness, an inclination toward cleverness, a fusty adherence to a contrarian point of view while still being enjoyable company, and an insouciant lack of concern for what others may think. A particularly entertaining and iconic use of this apparel is the Playboy Enterprises logo of a rabbit sporting a bowtie. In recent decades bowties have also made their way into women's wear, especially business attire in such professions as law, banking, and the corporate world, where it has become fashionable for professional women to wear skirted suits and pantsuits with button-down blouses and bowties at the collar.
In many of the above social occasions it would be entirely in keeping with and may even enhance the nature of both bowties and their wearers if the former were made to look like butterflies—which would certainly be appropriate since the representative profiles of butterflies and bowties essentially align, and because a butterfly's beauty, elegance, gentleness, carefree nature, and ability to fascinate are admirable traits in any social setting. Such an invention may even confer to the wearer an aura of increased intelligence, cleverness, and independent nature; and it would certainly add charm and appeal to an ordinarily dull piece of apparel. Moreover, in this era of increasing environmental awareness, this neckwear could further signify that the wearer is a supporter or sympathizer of environmental causes. Here it is merely frosting on the cake to add that in many cultures around the world that butterflies are a symbol of love and change for the better, and that for most people butterflies are one of the showiest and most delightful creatures in Nature.
Accordingly, the disclosed invention is a photorealistic representation of a recognizable species of butterfly, moth or even a dragonfly or other large insect, that functions as a bowtie, wherein the portrayed species can be identified by a lepidopterist or a layman consulting a book or other publication that describes named species of butterflies or other large insects. Several species that would lend themselves well to such portrayals are the Monarch, Swallowtail, and Buckeye butterflies, and the Luna and Polyphemus moths. Moreover, a number of tropical butterflies are so startlingly beautiful that they would make especially attractive embodiments of the invention. Indeed, the invention could have as many embodiments as there are species of butterflies and other large insects. The invention's potential embodiments may also include abstract representations that do not photorealistically portray a particular species of butterfly or other large insect but generally resemble a butterfly or large insect.
For the purposes of this Disclosure it may be pertinent to clarify the meaning of the word “photorealistic”. A photorealistic representation of an object is not a photograph of the object (such a rendition would be called a “photograph of the object”) but is a meticulously accurate depiction of the object that is usually created with colored paints. In fact, Photorealism is a recognized style of artistic expression that is [from Wikipedia] “a genre of painting based on using the camera and photographs to gather information and then from this information creating a painting that appears to be very realistic like a photograph.” Hence when the disclosed invention is described as a photorealistic representation of a recognizable species of butterfly or other large insect, said representation is not “a photograph” but is “like a photograph” of the represented object; which allows an embodiment of the disclosed invention to be created with colored paints, silkscreening, or a number of other methods of portraying said embodiment in a manner that is so meticulously accurate that it makes said embodiment look like a photograph of the modeled object, or, indeed the object itself.
It would be easy to manufacture this bowtie invention. One method would be to cut or stamp a profile of a particular species of open-winged butterfly, moth, dragonfly, or other large insect out of a strong thin material (copper is a suitable choice because it can be easily cut, bent, stamped, drilled, and/or soldered; its surface can be painted or silkscreened; and it subsequently won't rust or break) then paint, silk-screen, or otherwise depict by artistic or industrial means on the profile's front surface the coloration that particularizes said species of open-winged butterfly, moth, or other large insect.
Although any embodiment of the invention as described herein must necessarily include a means of tying, strapping, clipping, buttoning, or otherwise mounting on or connecting to the front of the wearer's collar or neck, such mounting or connecting means are not a part of the disclosed invention.
To determine if the disclosed invention is patentable, the inventor exhaustively searched 150 U.S. patents for bowties. The patents' numbers and cited Class/Subclasses appear on page 5. I believe most of these patents' classes and subclasses are organized in the PTO's Manual of Classification as follows [there may be other classes/subclasses relevant to this Disclosure but I don't know where to find them]:
In every case but one, perusal of the patented invention's text and drawings indicate that the inventive part of the patent pertains to some peripheral aspect of the bowtie's creation such as its “mounting method”, “connective means”, “supporting device”, “knot structure”, “drooping prevention”, or “improvements thereof”—all of which teach away from the disclosed invention's patentable feature being that the total bowtie—its most elemental and unitary property—looks like a species of butterfly or other large insect. Further, when any of the above patents includes a drawing of a bowtie, the tie is made of cloth—which teaches away from the solid inflexible construction of the disclosed invention.
The one exception that could potentially negate the patentability of the disclosed invention is U.S. Pat. No. 3,649,965, awarded to Alfred Krivda Aug. 11, 1970. In this patent, the bowtie pictured in FIGS. 1 and 2 is undoubtedly a representation of a butterfly. However, a careful examination of all parts of this patent indicates that the butterfly appearance of Krivda's bowtie invention is only incidental to what his invention claims. Specifically, Claim 1 of Krivda's patent declares that its inventive features are a “flexible spring wire” that holds his tie's base to the wearer's collar, and “a pair of snap sockets”
in the tie's base which hold a “second body” without making any reference to the second body being a butterfly—which teaches away from the disclosed invention being only a faux butterfly or other large insect. And Krivda's DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT, on page 3, column 2, lines 16-18, says, “A pair of wings 29 secured to the body B are illustrated in the form of a butterfly in FIGS. 1 and 2, but may have any desired form including costume or genuine jewelry”—which teaches away from the disclosed bowtie invention being only a representation of a butterfly or other large insect and never “any desired form including costume or genuine jewelry”. Even Krivda's SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION says, “The primary object of the invention is to provide a necktie which is detachably secured to the collar of a shirt and which has interchangeable detachable wing portions”; i.e. the pictured butterfly only illustrates how the invention works and is not part of the invention itself—which (1) teaches away from the disclosed invention having no interchangeable or detachable wing portions because it is a unitary object with no movable or separable portions, and (2) teaches away from the disclosed invention's “butterflyness” being the elemental part of the invention.
The above-disclosed features of the invention may be more fully understood by the following drawings of a preferred embodiment of the invention, as follows:
Referring now to the drawings in detail, wherein the same reference numbers indicate the same parts and details in each of the several figures, as follows:
In
In
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Although the means of mounting the disclosed bowtie invention on a wearer is not part of said invention, since a bowtie must include such a means of mounting on its wearer in order to be useful, in order to indicate the practicality of said invention the following describes two of several simple means of mounting said invention on a wearer. (1) Drill two tiny holes in the thoracic region of material 10 and staple body 12 through the holes in material 10 to a beltlike strap situated behind material 10 wherein said beltlike strap would buckle around the neck of the wearer; or (2) solder or braze a clip or other connecting means to the central back region of material 10 wherein said clip would hold said invention to the collar of the wearer.
Although the disclosed invention has been described and shown herein in terms of certain exemplary embodiments, it should be understood that various modifications and alterations could likely be made to the invention by any person skilled in the art or science to which the invention pertains without departing from the scope and spirit of the invention as defined in the following claims:
