Patent Application
20100310816
The present invention is related to the techniques used in designing and manufacturing writing surfaces to be used with dry erase markers, and more particularly, is related to a device to make annotations on a background that does not want to be altered, for example, sheets of books, formats, receipts, material that is written or drawn on a blackboard, etc.
As it is well known, there is a great variety of surfaces destined to writing and drawing, which can be erased so that surfaces can be used once and again. Such is the case of traditional blackboards which are a flat surface, usually green or black colored where in order to make annotations, a chalk is used, which is made up of oxides, hydroxides, and calcium carbonate in order to leave small particles adhered to the surface. Traditional blackboards have the drawback of being an opaque surface, besides they can not be transported from one place to another, and above all, they have the drawback that the chalk looses particles that are noxious for the person who is making annotations and erases the same.
Currently, different surfaces have been trying to be obtained where lines could be made in order to be reused, that is the case of the U.S. Pat. No. 3,574,956 where a writting support is described which is made up from a transparent or translucent plastic sheet, for example, PVC, which front surface is embossed with lines of semi-spherical bulges with about 0.1 mm in diameter and a space therebetween equal or smaller than the diameter. The back surface of the sheet has a grid with a layer with a distinctive color. In this support, any instrument that leaves solid particles on the surface can be used, having the drawback that the writing principle is similar to the one made in a traditional blackboard.
White blackboards with a smooth free-porosity and specific roughness surface designed to be used with ink markers with felt point do exist too, specifically for those dry erasure blackboards which can be purchased in the Mexican market under the trademark Pintarron®; however, a frequent problem in the blackboard use for dry erase markers as well as in traditional blackboards is that in many occasions, in order to cause an impact and an effective communication about what is being taught or explained, it is needed making annotations on something that is already written or drawn, without altering it in some way.
Likewise, there are semi-transparent surfaces wherein lines are drawn erasing and writing them in the same surface several times, such is the case of the U.S. Pat. No. 4,051,609 where a manufacture method of a reusable writing board and product thereof is described which provides an improvement in the manufacture of the so called “magic blackboards” through a printing operation. A background surface is provided in the same piece of cardboard, a bending and gluing operation produces the blackboard with a decorative, stuck, extendible panel protecting the entire upper plastic edge of a plastic sheet that covers the printed surface on the background, pneumatic means are used to separate the films and to erase in this way the stuck lines instantly raising the surface; nevertheless, this magic blackboard has the drawback that no annotations can be made with a dry erase marker to highlight something that has been written or drawn.
In U.S. Pat. No. 5,599,189, a reusable auxiliary board of learning is described, since it allows the student to insert a work sheet within a rigid body having a space between two plans mounted at the same time on a frame, one of the planes is transparent allowing the instructor to mark therein, carrying out the work required by an underlying work sheet, the marks made by the instructor are erased and the student tries to do the same work. A work sheet is fixed in position through a clipboard, it is mounted in a slot in order to avoid scratches on the transparent panel, the clipboard is attached in the slot by a latch mechanism, giving the capability of drawing over the documents without modifying the original one. However, the invention described in said document does not consider the manufacture of planes of flexible materials and the back transparent panel, as well as not adding elements to fix the board on a surface.
Another surface which is used to draw and which is reusable is the product obtained in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,791,910, since it is a reusable writing board with a single polyester coating sheet, reusable writing boards usually include two films placed on top of a back up board with a wax layer to which the films stick through an instrument that presses causing a dark colored pattern, the elements that make it up are a back up member which front side is printed with background color coated with a wax layer and a whitish polyester layer suitable as writing surface to provide a translucent opaque effect. Written is erased on lifting the upper film made up of polyester; likewise, it includes graphic material as lines, maps, or other pre-printed information in the back part of the film. Nonetheless, the chance of exchanging a background with pre-printed work material by another one is not taken into account and does not allows the use of dry erase markers either.
A flexible blackboard for graphic use is described in the Mexican utility model No. MX 1545. which is a rectangular set of three superimposed layers, plastic-paper-plastic, in one single piece, made up of a first layer defined by a paper sheet coated by two plasticized layers; a plurality of metallic buttonholes with just one intermediate radius each; an intermediate perforation that goes through the blackboard thickness and which are placed within the limit adjacent to the corners of the rectangle; a plurality of removable magnetic bolts with two inserted cylindrical bodies, a first body of the same size of the intermediate hole of the buttonholes allowing that said first body slides through said hole and a second body of greater size than the first one that is suitable as a limit when the first body is inserted in the hole of the buttonhole, said bolts, being magnetic, allow the blackboard to be attached in metallic surfaces. Again, here is a drawback of not having a surface that allows making annotations over something already written or drawn.
In short, it can be seen that there are many devices to show knowledge by drawing and writing on top of traditional blackboards, white surface blackboards, boards, flipcharts, etc. However, a constant problem and need is that in order to efficiently communicate some knowledge, sometimes it is necessary to make annotations, marks, lines, etc. on what is written or printed without altering it; that is, providing a surface or mask that is placed on or receives a background to make annotations on it without modifying what is underneath thereof.
As a consequence of the above, cutting out the current drawbacks in the devices and articles that are suitable to show written or graphic material has been sought, developing a device to make annotations on a background. The device, being simple, but very practical, functional, and of easy manufacture that allows making annotations on a background that can be fixed or exchangeable.
The device of the present invention comprises an upper transparent and smooth film, with closed pores to make annotations with dry erase markers, the film is manufactured from a polymer; and, a back cover wherein the upper film is attached in at least one portion of its perimeter, in such a way that between the upper film and the back cover there is an inlet that allows the insertion and removal of the background on which is desirable to make annotations without altering it. That is, the background is removable.
In a device embodiment, it comprises means to attach the back cover on a surface, such as a wall, a door, or an electrical appliance.
The device is very useful when, for example, the background is a pre-printed sheet, a format, a form, a drawing, a sketch or a diagram, or a representation of a field of any sport, since it allows making annotations without damaging or altering the background.
The polymer with which the upper film is manufactured is selected from the group that consists of acetate, acrylic, PVC, polyurethane, melamine, polystyrene, polyethylene, polypropylene, polyethylene-terephtalate, polyester, and polyvinyl. In this sense, the back cover can also be transparent and be manufactured with the same material of the upper film; that is, making annotations can also be done on the back cover.
Now, as it was mentioned, the background on which annotations want to be made, can be fixed, in this case, the device of the present invention comprises: an upper transparent and smooth film, with closed pores to make annotations with dry erase markers, the film being manufactured from a polymer; and, a mounting tab attached to a portion of the upper film perimeter, the mounting tab is placed on the surface of the fixed background where annotations want to be made leaving it intact.
This embodiment mounted on a fixed background is very useful when annotations want to be made on what is already written or drawn on a traditional blackboard or a white surface one, a flipchart, a book, a binder, or a magazine, etc.
From the abovementioned, an object of the present invention is to provide an easy manufacture and cheap device that could be used over the majority of the surfaces where there is written or drawn material and above all, in those documents that do not want to be altered.
The novel aspects considered as typical of the present invention, will be particularly established in the attached set of claims. Nevertheless, the invention itself, both for its structure and for its mounting, along with other objects and advantages thereof, will be better understood in the following detailed description of certain preferred embodiments, when reading with regard to the accompanying drawings, wherein:
In reference to the attached drawings, and more specifically to
The device 10 comprises an upper film 11 which is transparent, smooth and with closed pore to make annotations with dry erase markers, this film is manufactured from a polymer which is selected from the group comprising acetate, acrylic, PVC, polyurethane, melamine, polystyrene, polyethylene, polypropylene, polyethylene-terephtalate, polyester and polyvinyl.
As it is observed, the device has a back cover 12 wherein the upper film 11 is attached in a portion of its perimeter in such a way that between the upper film 11 and the back cover 12, there is an inlet 13 that allows the insertion and removal of the sheets 20, as it is indicated by the moving arrows 14 and 15. It is just on this sheets 20 on which annotations 30 that not alter the content of the sheets want to be written. As it is observed, the upper film 11 and the back cover 12 have quadrilateral shape, however, the device of the present invention may have any shape, for example, an oval shape; the shape does not imply a restriction for the present invention, that is, other shapes are possible.
Now, reference is made to
This second embodiment is characterized in that the back cover 212 is translucent so that light can pass through it on mounting the device 210 on a box of lamps or “backlight” 240, even the back cover 212 can be made up of the same material as the upper film 211, that is, annotations 30 can be made on the upper film 211 as well as on the back cover 212. The device 210 of this second embodiment allows introducing a radiography 220 as removable background, in such a way that on inserting the radiography 220 in the device 210 and on turning on the light, the doctor who is analyzing the radiography can make annotations 30 with a dry erase marker 50. Subsequently, annotations 30 can be erased in order to use the device 210 once and again on other radiographies without modifying or damaging the content thereof. The moving arrows 214 and 215 show the direction to which the radiography slides within the device 210 inserting itself laterally or vertically at the corresponding inlets 213.
Referring now to
Now, in this third embodiment, the device 310 includes means to attach the back cover on a surface such as it is shown in
Another embodiment of the device where the background is removable is illustrated in
Moreover, this fifth embodiment comprises an mounting tab 517 attached to the back cover 512 that allows attaching the device 510 on the monitor 65 of a computer, the mounting tab 517 can be made up of adhesive material or Velcro® type strip (hook-and-fiber attachment strips).
Until now, in
In
To see that the present invention has multiple applications and advantages, reference is made to
Finally, it could be said that the upper transparent and smooth film, with closed pores of all embodiments of the device to make annotations on a background of the present invention is manufactured from a polymer selected from the group comprising acetate, acrylic, PVC, polyurethane, melamine, polystyrene, polyethylene, polypropylene, polyethylene-terephtalate, polyester, and polyvinyl, the back cover is made up of a material which is selected from a great variety of materials, for example plastic, wood, metal, melamine, etc.
Even though reference has been made to specific embodiments of the present invention in the prior description, it has to be emphasized that many possible modifications could be done to such embodiment, but without deviating from the real scope of the invention, such as the materials, sizes, location, etc. Therefore, the present invention must not be restricted except for the established in the prior art and by the attached set of claims.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| MX/U/2007/000366 | Oct 2007 | MX | national |
| Filing Document | Filing Date | Country | Kind | 371c Date |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| PCT/IB2008/002555 | 9/30/2008 | WO | 00 | 8/24/2010 |
