This invention generally relates to containers and exercise equipment and more particularly relates to an apparatus that serves as both a holder for a beverage and also an exercise apparatus for the hands, wrist or forearms. The device may also include lights and audio.
Beverage holders such as mugs, glasses, cups, steins, bottles and so forth have been used for centuries so that various beverages can be conveniently consumed. Also insulating devices (sometimes known as Koozies™) have been known for many years to help keep a beverage either warm or cold. Insulating beverage holders can be designed to fit standard bottle sizes or standard beverage cans. Insulating beverage holders are often sold or given away by beverage companies since they can be used as advertising vehicles (i.e. the outside surface of the Koozie has advertising space for commercial entities). Koozies are typically designed to snugly fit around either the bottle or can of the beverage. Likewise, most beverage bottles and cans in a single serving size are designed to fit comfortably into a user's hand. Drinking beverages (particularly alcoholic beverages) is sometimes considered to be a sedentary activity. In fact, for many years the poster child for the inactive, overweight “couch potato” is a man sitting on a couch drinking a beer while watching some sports event.
Grippers are often used by persons involved in sports where hand, wrist or forearm strength is crucial (e.g. tennis, baseball, football, rugby, basketball, golf and so forth). Grippers can be as simple as a circular spring with V-shaped handles that are attached to the two legs coming off the spring. These single spring grippers include, for example, Tiger Claw Hand Exercise Grips from Amazon.com, Extra Strength Hand Grip from Everlast Worldwide, Inc. and Heavy Grip from Heavy Sports, Inc. In addition, more complex grippers with multiple springs (sometimes one for each finger) include, for example, GripMaster Hand Exerciser from Accu-Net, LLC. Compressible balls or spheres, such as foam shaped ball or sphere or a ball or sphere with a resilient rubber like covering filled with dry particles or pellets, can also be used for exercise. Exercise grippers are disclosed, for example, in a series of US patents by Mark A Scatterday, including U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,190,504, 5,350,342, 5,716,303, 6,210,304, 6,059,249, 6,482,129, and 6,162,149 (hereinafter the Scatterday patents). Some compressible ball apparatuses are, for example, the GHS Handmaster Plus Hand Exerciser and the DynaFlex Platinum Powerball, both available from Amazon.
It would be a significant improvement and advance to combine exercise with beverage drinking.
In certain embodiments, an apparatus serve as an insulating device to keep the beverage either hot or cold. The apparatus includes a gripper. In at least one embodiment of the invention, the exercise apparatus portion of the combined apparatus is a hand compressible apparatus. As a user repeatedly compresses and then releases the compressible hand apparatus (also called a “gripper”) this exercises their hand muscles, wrist muscles and forearm muscles. The term “gripper”, as used herein, is meant to broadly include any of a large number of squeezable hand exercise apparatuses including but not limited to ones with single springs, multiple springs and grippers without springs made of compressible materials such as rubber, elastomers or dry flowable sand or other small spheres.
In at least one embodiment of the invention, mechanical grippers with springs are attached to a handle of a beverage holder such as a mug. The gripper may be an integral part of the mug handle or may be detachably attached to the mug handle.
In another embodiment of the invention, the gripper is either attached to or an integral part of a “Koozie” ™ type beverage holder (hereinafter called “insulating beverage holders”).
In embodiments using insulating beverage holders (rather than mugs with handles), the gripper may not be a mechanical apparatus with a spring or springs but instead it might be a compressible material such as a compressible ball.
A more complete and thorough understanding of the present disclosure and its advantages may be acquired by referring to the detailed description below in conjunction with the drawings referenced immediately below:
a) is a perspective view of a mug with a coupler on the handle and an independent gripper when the two apparatuses are not in combination.
b) is a perspective view of the same mug and gripper of
a) is a cutaway view of a beverage bottle with an insulating beverage holder having a compressible area usable as an exercise apparatus.
b) is a cutaway view of a beverage can with an insulating beverage holder having a compressible area usable as an exercise apparatus.
a) is a cutaway view of a beverage bottle with a compressible doughnut shaped insulating beverage holder that is slipped over the top of the bottle.
b) is a cutaway view of a beverage bottle with a compressible doughnut shaped insulating beverage holder that is intended to be slipped over the top of the bottle wherein the compressible doughnut shaped bottle holder also has a skirt extending below the doughnut that covers much of the bottle.
c) is a frontal perspective view of a beverage bottle with a compressible doughnut shaped bottle holder that is intended to be slipped over the top of the bottle.
Characteristics and advantages of the present disclosure and additional features and benefits will be readily apparent to those skilled in the art upon consideration of the following detailed description of exemplary embodiments of the present disclosure and referring to the accompanying figures. It should be understood that the description herein and appended drawings, being of example embodiments, are not intended to limit the claims of this patent or any patent or patent application claiming priority hereto. On the contrary, the intention is to cover all modifications, equivalents and alternatives falling within the spirit and scope of the claims. Many changes may be made to the particular embodiments and details disclosed herein without departing from such spirit and scope.
In showing and describing preferred embodiments in the appended figures, common or similar elements are referenced with like or identical reference numerals or are apparent from the figures and/or the description herein. The figures are not necessarily to scale and certain features and certain views of the figures may be shown exaggerated in scale or in schematic in the interest of clarity and conciseness.
As may be used herein and throughout various portions (and headings) of this patent application, the terms “invention”, “present invention” and variations thereof are not intended to mean every possible embodiment encompassed by this disclosure or any particular claim(s). Thus, the subject matter of each such reference should not be considered as necessary for, or part of, every embodiment hereof or of any particular claim(s) merely because of such reference. The terms “coupled”, “connected”, “engaged”, “incorporated” and the like, and variations thereof, as used herein and in the appended claims are intended to mean either an indirect or direct connection or engagement. Thus, if a first device couples to a second device, that connection may be through a direct connection, or through an indirect connection via other devices and connections.
Certain terms are used herein and in the appended claims to refer to particular components. As one skilled in the art will appreciate, different persons may refer to a component by different names. This document does not intend to distinguish between components that differ in name but not function. Also, the terms “including” and “comprising” are used herein and in the appended claims in an open-ended fashion, and thus should be interpreted to mean “including, but not limited to . . . ” Further, reference herein and in the appended claims to components and aspects in a singular tense does not necessarily limit the present disclosure or appended claims to only one such component or aspect, but should be interpreted generally to mean one or more, as may be suitable and desirable in each particular instance.
Apparatus 838 allows a user to enjoy a beverage such as a beer while also exercising his hand, wrist and forearm while compressing spring 888. Handle 808 may include finger guides 848 on the interior side of handle 808 to make it more comfortable for the user.
There are a number of different ways of attaching a gripper to a beverage holder. One method of making combination apparatus 838 is to make both beverage holder 880 (including handle 808) and gripper handle 801 out of the same plastic using injection molding processes well known in the art. Spring 888 can be integrally attached to both mug 880 and grip handle 801 by over molding mug 880 and handle 801 over legs 818 and 828 of spring 888. In some embodiments where a transparent mug is desired the injection plastic may be a polycarbonate.
Another way of permanently attaching gripper 888 to a mug handle 808 is to injection mold mug 880 such that mug handle 808 has a cavity sized to fit a leg of the gripper (not expressly shown) and to insert gripper leg 818 into the cavity and attach it with an adhesive such as an epoxy glue. In another embodiment (not expressly shown) handle 801 can have a foam or elastic comfort sleeve slipped over handle 801 for either comfort or improved grip.
Another embodiment, in which a gripper is not necessarily an integral part of a mug, is shown in
It may be desirable, but not necessary, for either coupler 303 or grip 401 (or both) to be a compressible material in order to make taking handgrip 400 on and off of mug 300 easier. If it is easy to attach and remove hand grip 400 from mug 300 then both items can easily be used alone and not in combination. For example, handgrip 400 can be taken off of mug 300 and used in a normal exercise routine unrelated to mug 300. Likewise, mug 300 can be used as a normal mug without the exercise apparatus once handgrip 400 is removed. For this reason, it may be desirable to make handle 302 and coupler 303 as comfortable as possible for a user should handgrip 400 be removed.
In yet another embodiment involving a mug,
a) shows a standard beverage bottle 10 with bottle bottom 11, and shoulder area 15 leading to narrower neck area 12. At the top of bottle 10 is opening 13 covered by bottle cap 14.
Surrounding bottle 10 is bottle holder/koozie 20 with hole 21 in the bottom of holder 20 to prevent vacuums. Bottle holders are well known in the art and have various uses including the following: (1) an insulator to keep ones beverage either cold or warm; (2) a holder to improve a user's grip on the bottle or can; and (3) a marketing tool using the surface of the bottle holder as advertising space. Common names for bottle and can holders include the following: Koozie™, coosie, beer sleeve, coolie, hugger, huggie, can cooler and so forth. In this disclosure the use of the word koozie and insulating beverage holders can be interchangeable.
The beverage holder of the subject invention is dramatically different than the standard koozie, because it also includes compressible device 40 which is intended to be used as an exercise apparatus. Typical insulating beverage holders are simple foam, polyester or neoprene cylinders with a foam base. The cylindrical part of the insulating beverage holders is typically as thin as possible to still have insulation properties. Such standard insulating beverage holders typically have a consistent thickness throughout the insulating beverage holders (except that perhaps the bottom of the insulating beverage holders bottom may be made of different material with a different thickness).
In at least one embodiment of the subject disclosure, gripper/compressible device 40 is attached to (or integral with) the outside surface of cylindrical holder 20. In the embodiment shown in
Compressible device 40 may be made in a variety of different ways and out of a variety of different substances such as rubbers, elastomers, foams and dry flowable particles. In one embodiment shown in
b) shows yet another embodiment of the disclosure where once again holder 120 is slipped over the bottom of can 110. In this embodiment of the disclosure, compressible device 140 is an integral part of holder 120 and holder 120 simply has a thicker, compressible area 140 that allows a user to compress thicker, compressible area 140 to get hand, wrist and forearm exercise. This embodiment may be preferable when holder 120 (and thus thicker compressible area 140) are made of materials that have both insulation properties and compressibility and resilience (e.g. memory) properties (e.g. open cell foams). In some embodiments, such as the one shown in
c) shows another embodiment of the subject disclosure where doughnut shaped holder 50 is slid over the top of bottle 10 and the hole in holder 50 is sized so that it fits snugly on shoulder 15. (Inside surface 55 of doughnut shaped holder 50 may be textured in such a way that it grips glass or made of materials that grip glass (e.g. certain rubbers, neoprene, foams etc)).
Beverage holder 50 of
b) shows a beverage holder similar to holder 50 in
The major difference between
The light or audio embodiment shown in
Circuit 230 when triggered by the piezoelectric impact sensor 218, energizes a light-emitting diodes (LEDs) 240. The LED(s) 240 may also be located or molded into the beverage holder 240.
In use, as the drinker of beverage bottle 200 squeezes beverage holder 210 piezoelectric sensor 220 produces a pulse of electrical energy each time finger guide area 218 of beverage holder 210 is squeezed or compressed by virtue of the piezoelectric effect. Each pulse of electrical energy from sensor 220 triggers a reaction from circuit 230 in ways well known in the art and disclosed in both patents '163 and '635.
Triggering circuit 230 allows LED(s) 240 to light for a time period determined by circuit 230. In another embodiment, not expressly shown, circuit 230 communicates with an audio device such as a speaker or transducer such that the beverage holder responds visually or audibly with the use of the exercise device. This capability allows for many interesting ways to either entertain the user or third parties or give the user information on his use of the apparatus. In certain embodiments where higher levels of energy are required (e.g. audio, video or dramatic lighting) the apparatus may include a battery or other power source. In this embodiment (not expressly shown) the piezo electric sensors trigger reactions in but do not necessarily power the displays since the battery can be used for this purpose.
Preferred embodiments of the present disclosure thus offer advantages over the prior art and are well adapted to carry out one or more of the objects of this disclosure. However, the present invention does not require each of the components and acts described above and is in no way limited to the above-described embodiments, methods of operation, variables, suggested shapes, values or value ranges. Any one or more of the above components, features and processes may be employed in any suitable configuration without inclusion of other such components, features and processes. Moreover, the present invention includes additional features, capabilities, functions, methods, uses and applications that have not been specifically addressed herein but are, or will become, apparent from the description herein, the appended drawings and claims.
The methods that may be described above or claimed herein and any other methods which may fall within the scope of the appended claims can be performed in any desired suitable order and are not necessarily limited to any sequence described herein or as may be listed in the appended claims. Further, the methods of the present invention do not necessarily require use of the particular embodiments shown and described herein, but are equally applicable with any other suitable structure, form and configuration of components.
While exemplary embodiments of the invention have been shown and described, many variations, modifications and/or changes of the system, apparatus and methods of the present invention, such as in the components, details of construction and operation, arrangement of parts and/or methods of use, are possible, contemplated by the patent applicant(s), within the scope of the appended claims, and may be made and used by one of ordinary skill in the art without departing from the spirit or teachings of the invention and scope of appended claims. Thus, all matter herein set forth or shown in the accompanying drawings should be interpreted as illustrative, and the scope of the disclosure and the appended claims should not be limited to the embodiments described and shown herein.
This application claims priority under 35 U.S.C. Section 119(e) to U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/571,787 filed Jul. 5, 2011; U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/626,820 filed Oct. 3, 2011 and U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/631,114 filed Dec. 27, 2011. The contents of these provisional applications are hereby incorporated by reference in their entirety.
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Number | Date | Country | |
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20130012358 A1 | Jan 2013 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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61571787 | Jul 2011 | US | |
61626820 | Oct 2011 | US | |
61631114 | Dec 2011 | US |