Patent Application
20150148723
1. Field of the Disclosure
The present disclosure relates to decorated braces, bandages, and clips thereof. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to decorated knee braces, decorated bandage wraps, and decorated bandage clips.
2. Related Art
Children and adults often have injuries requiring a brace or bandage (e.g., sprains, breaks, fractures, etc.). However, such braces and bandages are plain and often noticeable depending on the attire and type of injury (e.g., a knee brace worn with a dress or skirt). People, especially children, may be particularly self-conscious about the bandage or brace, especially at social gatherings, whether formal or informal (e.g., school, parties, weddings, etc.). This can lead to non-use which can result in further injury or prolonging recovery from injury.
What would be desirable, but has not yet been developed, is a brace or bandage that is more likely to be worn by an injured person.
The present disclosure relates to decorated braces, bandages, and clips thereof. More specifically, the present disclosure relates to decorated braces, decorated bandage wraps, and decorated bandage clips. The braces and bandages could be decorated with any of a variety of designs or decorative elements using any suitable technique. The designs could relate to anything that an injured person might want to display such that the bandage or brace is personalized for the injured person. The braces, bandages, and/or bandage clips could be packaged in any of a variety of ways, such as in a decoration kit.
The foregoing features of the disclosure will be apparent from the following Detailed Description, taken in connection with the accompanying drawings, in which:
The present disclosure relates to decorated braces, bandages, and clips thereof, as discussed below in connection with
The braces or bandages (or any other type of support) of the present disclosure could be made of any of a variety of materials, such as fabric (e.g., cotton, silk, wool or a synthetic fabric). The brace could be any type of brace or other support (e.g., knee brace, elbow brace, wrist brace, ankle brace, etc.), and the bandage could be any type of bandage or other support (e.g., Ace bandage wrap (Ace is a registered trademark of 3M Company, St. Paul, Minn.), cold-compress wrap, etc.).
The braces, bandages, and/or clips disclosed herein could be decorated with any of a variety of designs and/or decorative elements using any suitable technique. For example, the decoration could be any design including any one or combination of solid colors, patterns (e.g., stripes, plaid, tie-dye, polka dot, geometric, etc.), and/or objects (e.g., flowers, sports equipment, television characters, movie characters, mythical creatures, etc.), etc. Further, the design could be at any one or multiple locations on the brace, bandage, and/or clip (e.g., cover all or a portion of the decorated knee brace). The design could be a simple design which could cover the entire surface of the brace or bandage. Suitable techniques could include stitching, screen printing, embroidery, painting, dyeing, printing, waxing, burning (e.g., burning an image into the fabric), rusting, digital printing, felting, etc. Materials that could be used to decorate the braces or bandages include heat transfer paints or crayons, paint sticks, decolourant, fabrics (e.g., by layering different types of fabrics), resists (e.g., beeswax, soy wax, water-based resist, etc.), and/or other coloring utensils, etc. Additionally, other objects (e.g., other decorative elements) can be attached (e.g., ironed, sewn, etc.) onto the fabric, including beads, crystals, buttons, charms, fibers, patches, etc. Further, these coloring utensils, materials, etc. can be provided in a packaged set or kit, as described in more detail below.
The brace 10 has one or more decorative elements 28 applied to the outside surface 12 of the brace 10. In this particular embodiment, the decorative elements 28 include ballet shoes and flowers, however, any type or form of decoration could be used. Accordingly, an injured person could pick a brace from numerous choices bearing a variety of designs. In this way, the injured person can wear a personalized brace: a brace decorated with a design that says something about the injured person, such as the person's favorite sport or sports team, etc. Additionally, the decorative elements 28 could also be on the inside surface 14 so that the brace 10 could be reversible or flipped inside out (e.g., have two different displays of decorative elements).
The braces, bandages, and/or bandage clips could be packaged in any of a variety of ways. For example, the decorated bandage of
Having thus described the system and method in detail, it is to be understood that the foregoing description is not intended to limit the spirit or scope thereof. It will be understood that the embodiments of the present disclosure described herein are merely exemplary and that a person skilled in the art may make any variations and modification without departing from the spirit and scope of the disclosure. All such variations and modifications, including those discussed above, are intended to be included within the scope of the disclosure.
This application claims priority to U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 61/909,523 filed on Nov. 27, 2013, the entire disclosure of which is expressly incorporated herein by reference.
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 61909523 | Nov 2013 | US |
