Patent Grant
10939744
The invention relates to a convertible baby carrier backpack system that enables using a backpack portion as a backpack alone, a baby carrier portion as a baby carrier alone, or coupling the two portions together to form an integrated baby carrier and backpack.
People today, especially working parents, are very busy and literally have their hands full. Many utilize baby carriers to free their hands for briefcases, holding other children's hands, cell phones and the like. Babies and toddlers require a lot of travel accessories including diapers, wipes, bottles, toys, pacifiers and the like. Busy parents have to find a way to carry all of these baby accessories, the baby and other personal effects. This is very challenging.
Backpacks, rucksacks, and other “carryable” luggage articles are well-known and in widespread use. Most known backpacks consist of little more than a flexible bag or body defining a box-shaped volume, with a zippered opening and one or more shoulder straps. Further, wearable infant carriers are also well known and in widespread use. Most wearable infant carriers use shoulder and torso straps to secure the carrier to the user and have a padded area for the child to ride in either the forward facing or parent facing directions. Furthermore, said wearable infant carriers can be worn such that the infant is carried on the proximal side of the parent or the distal side of the parent. However, since infant carriers have limited storage space for child care accessories, it is common practice for care givers to use both a backpack, rucksack, or carryable luggage and an infant carrier simultaneously.
Backpacks, rucksacks, and carryable luggage do not interface well with wearable infant carriers. When used concurrently, they frequently get tangled due to multiple straps and complicated strapping requirements. Furthermore, infant carriers have a singular function in that they can only be used to carry an infant requiring the care giver to keep in inventory other items to perform the standard child care duties, specifically a pad or mat that the child can be placed upon during changing. Furthermore, when an infant carrier is in use and the child is removed from the carrier, the caregiver is left with a bundle of straps that hang off of their body that can cause the caregiver to become entangled and potentially ensnared.
Baby carriers support the child against a panel of the baby carrier which may be proximal to the parent or distal from the parent. The baby may fall asleep and their breathing can be compromised if pressed against the baby carrier panel. This is especially problematic when the child is facing the parent while positioned in the infant carrier as their respiratory organs, like their mouth and nose, may be pressed against a non-permeable panel which can limit their ability to breath properly.
The invention is directed to a convertible baby carrier backpack system that enables using a backpack portion as a backpack alone, a baby carrier portion as a baby carrier alone, or coupling the two portions together to form an integrated baby carrier backpack. A baby carrier has a carrier opening between a back panel and a carrier panel. A back panel is opposite the shoulder straps and configured away from a carrier when used as a baby carrier, while the carrier panel is configured proximal to the carrier when used as a baby carrier. An exemplary baby carrier portion has a carrier attachment feature configured on the baby carrier, such as on the back panel, that enables detachable attachment of a backpack. An exemplary backpack portion has a backpack attachment feature that is configured to couple with the carrier attachment feature to enable detachable attachment of the backpack portion to the baby carrier portion.
An exemplary backpack has a backpack container configured between a distal and proximal panel. A distal panel is opposite the shoulder straps and configured away from the carrier when worn as a backpack. A proximal panel is configured proximal to the carrier when used as a backpack. The shoulder straps typically extend from the proximal panel or away from the backpack on the proximal panel side.
An exemplary attachment feature of the baby carrier and backpack portions may be a zipper, hook-n-loop fastener, straps and buckles and the like. A preferred attachment feature is a zipper with one set of teeth configured on the carrier portion and the mating set of teeth configured along the backpack portion. A slide may be configured on either portion and engage the two sets of teeth to detachably attach the baby carrier portion to the backpack portion. The attachment feature, such as a zipper may extend along a substantial portion of the perimeter of the baby carrier portion and/or the backpack portion, or extend at least about 50% or more about the perimeter, about 75% or more of the perimeter or more or completely around the perimeter of the baby carrier portion. The perimeter of the backpack portion may be measured around the distal panel and the perimeter of the baby carrier portion may be measured around the back panel, for example. In an exemplary embodiment, the attachment feature extends along the top and down some portion of the opposing sides of the baby carrier portion and the backpack portion. In an exemplary embodiment, the attachment feature extends along the top of the baby carrier portion and down both sides to the bottom of the baby carrier portion. An attachment portion may extend complete around the perimeter of the baby carrier portion to produce a ring enclosure with the backpack portion. The attachment feature may extend along the back panel portion of the baby carrier and around the proximal panel of the backpack portion.
The backpack portion may be attached to the back panel of the baby carrier portion and the straps may extend outside of the attachment feature or may be configured within the enclosure formed by the attachment feature, or secured between the proximal panel of the backpack portion and the back panel of the baby carrier portion. The shoulder straps of the baby carrier portion may be used to carrier the integrated baby carrier backpack, wherein the backpack portion is attached to the baby carrier portion.
An exemplary baby carrier portion has shoulder straps that extend from the baby carrier portion, such as from the top of the baby carrier portion and may be coupled with the carrier panel, the paned closest to the carrier. The shoulder straps may extend around the carrier's shoulders and back to the baby carrier portion to form a loop. The shoulder straps may couple back to the carrier panel portion some height up from the bottom of the baby carrier portion, to allow for a leg opening along the sides of the baby carrier portion, between the carrier panel and the back panel. An exemplary baby carrier portion may comprise a waist strap configured to extend in a loop around a carrier's waist. The waist strap may be coupled to the baby carrier portion proximal to the bottom, and below the shoulder strap.
An exemplary baby carrier portion comprises a permeable panel configured on an inside surface of the carrier panel and/or on the inside surface of the back panel, to enable the child retained therein to breath freely, even if they have fallen asleep with their nose and/or mouth pressed against the permeable panel. An exemplary permeable panel has a breathable permeability, or a permeability sufficient for breathing therethrough, such as a Gurley permeability time of about 10 seconds or less, or about 5 second or less as measured by a Gurley Automatic Densometer model 4340, Gurley Precision Instruments, Troy N.Y. A cover may be configured over the permeable panel and the cover may be detachably attachable. The cover may be used when it is very windy and/or cold.
An exemplary convertible baby carrier backpack system has a back panel of the baby carrier portion that is formed by the proximal panel of the backpack portion. The carrier panel may be coupled to the backpack and may extend across the proximal panel of the backpack portion to form a carrier opening between the proximal panel of the backpack and the carrier panel. The proximal panel of the backpack portion forms the back panel of the baby carrier in this configuration. The carrier panel may be configured to detach, or partially detach to facilitate locating the child in the carrier opening. The carrier panel may be attached or detachably attached along opposing sides and along a portion of the bottom to form leg openings for the child's legs. A securing panel may be coupled to the backpack and may extend around a baby carrier portion to secure the baby carrier to the backpack portion. An exemplary securing panel may extend under the straps of the backpack from one side of the backpack to the opposing side of the backpack to retain the baby carrier therebetween the securing panel and the proximal panel of the backpack.
The summary of the invention is provided as a general introduction to some of the embodiments of the invention, and is not intended to be limiting. Additional example embodiments including variations and alternative configurations of the invention are provided herein.
The accompanying drawings are included to provide a further understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention, and together with the description serve to explain the principles of the invention.
Corresponding reference characters indicate corresponding parts throughout the several views of the figures. The figures represent an illustration of some of the embodiments of the present invention and are not to be construed as limiting the scope of the invention in any manner. Further, the figures are not necessarily to scale, some features may be exaggerated to show details of particular components. Therefore, specific structural and functional details disclosed herein are not to be interpreted as limiting, but merely as a representative basis for teaching one skilled in the art to variously employ the present invention.
As used herein, the terms “comprises,” “comprising,” “includes,” “including,” “has,” “having” or any other variation thereof, are intended to cover a non-exclusive inclusion. For example, a process, method, article, or apparatus that comprises a list of elements is not necessarily limited to only those elements but may include other elements not expressly listed or inherent to such process, method, article, or apparatus. Also, use of “a” or “an” are employed to describe elements and components described herein. This is done merely for convenience and to give a general sense of the scope of the invention. This description should be read to include one or at least one and the singular also includes the plural unless it is obvious that it is meant otherwise.
Certain exemplary embodiments of the present invention are described herein and are illustrated in the accompanying figures. The embodiments described are only for purposes of illustrating the present invention and should not be interpreted as limiting the scope of the invention. Other embodiments of the invention, and certain modifications, combinations and improvements of the described embodiments, will occur to those skilled in the art and all such alternate embodiments, combinations, modifications, improvements are within the scope of the present invention.
A baby carrier may be configured to carry an infant, toddler or small child but is referred to simply as a baby carrier herein.
Referring now to
Referring now to
Referring now to
As shown in
As shown in
As shown in
Referring now to
Referring now to
It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications, combinations and variations can be made in the present invention without departing from the scope of the invention. Specific embodiments, features and elements described herein may be modified, and/or combined in any suitable manner. Thus, it is intended that the present invention cover the modifications, combinations and variations of this invention provided they come within the scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.
This application claims the benefit of priority to U.S. provisional patent application No. 62/664,266, filed on Apr. 29, 2018; the entirety of which is hereby incorporated by reference herein.
| Number | Name | Date | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 5020709 | Hoaglan | Jun 1991 | A |
| 5673836 | Bush | Oct 1997 | A |
| 5791535 | Roan | Aug 1998 | A |
| 5848741 | Fair | Dec 1998 | A |
| 6598771 | Norman | Jul 2003 | B2 |
| 10264895 | Lindeman | Apr 2019 | B2 |
| 20020175194 | Norman | Nov 2002 | A1 |
| 20050184114 | Hoff | Aug 2005 | A1 |
| 20080283559 | Parness | Nov 2008 | A1 |
| 20110186605 | Favorito | Aug 2011 | A1 |
| 20120298702 | Jung | Nov 2012 | A1 |
| 20150196133 | Rosen | Jul 2015 | A1 |
| 20150201761 | Wollenberg | Jul 2015 | A1 |
| 20170119173 | Telford | May 2017 | A1 |
| 20180035823 | Landeros | Feb 2018 | A1 |
| 20180235379 | Lindeman | Aug 2018 | A1 |
| 20190350379 | Antunovic | Nov 2019 | A1 |
| 20190350380 | Tsai | Nov 2019 | A1 |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20190328118 A1 | Oct 2019 | US |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 62664266 | Apr 2018 | US |
