Patent Application
20070264459
NONE
NONE
1. Field of Invention
This invention generally relates to placemats, specifically to partially cover the bottom of the table and which also covers and adheres to the top and lip of restaurant and dining tables for small children.
2. Prior Art
Originally placemats were made to protect only the table tops while consuming a meal. Typically, such placemats only cover the top of the table and not the bottom. This leaves the bottom of the tables totally exposed to children's hands and mouth. In eating establishments such as fast food restaurants and diners, these placemats do not cover the bottom side of the tables, which are barely ever cleaned. This exposes the children to deadly bacteria which grows under the bottom of the table. A sanitary environment is especially important for infants because of the high risk of communicable diseases. It was also noticed that children would always bite and rub their hands on the bottom of the table before they would eat. Furthermore, babies are most likely to pick gum off the bottom of the tables, not including other foreign substances. There has been nothing to address this problem. We believe that a mat that covers the top, lip, and bottom of tables are a new concept.
Accordingly, there remains a need for a placemat which covers the bottom of the tables and is less susceptible to being tampered with by children, but is disposable and inexpensive.
Accordingly, several objects and advantages of the invention are:
This benefits the parent by being a guide for their hand along the bottom of the table.
Further objects and advantages are to provide a placemat which can be used easily and conveniently to protect the child while he/she is eating, which can protect the child's hand from touching the foreign substances under the table, which is simple to use and inexpensive to manufacture, and is conveniently carried in a baby bag. Still further objects and advantages will become apparent from a consideration of the ensuing description and drawings.
This invention is a total new concept for disposable children's placemats, which is longer then the normal placemat because it covers the bottom, lip, and top of a restaurant or dining table. Children are often known to pull gum from the bottom of tables, wipe their hands across foreign substances under the table, and chew on the lip of the tables. This invention will allow the child to be less exposed to germs which are on the bottom, lip, and top of tables when dining in restaurants.
Accordingly several objects and advantages of the invention are to provide a wipeable surface, to provide a pressure sensitive adhesive strips which covers the back portion and adheres to the bottom, lip, and top of restaurant and dining tables, it keeps the child from peeling the placemat off the table, to provide a perforated tear line which enables a user to divide the placemats in half, to provide a shield so that the child does not come in contact with germs, communicable diseases, and other foreign substances, and to provide a pocket to assist the parents hand so that it does not come in contact with the bottom of the table. Still further objects and advantages will become apparent from a consideration of the ensuing description and drawings.
In the drawings, you will find figures that have different numbers but different reference numerals describing what is on the invention.
A preferred embodiment of the child's disposable placemat is illustrated in
The placemat has a top 10 section that serves as a standard placemat where the child can eat. It is typically 18 inches wide and 12 inches long or could be longer in length and width. Towards the middle of the placemat there will be a perforated tear line 20 which can be torn at the 12 inch line. Approximately two inches of the table lip channel 30 will wrap around the table. This leaves approximately six to ten inches which serves as the under mat 30 and 40. Also included is a hand pocket 40 which is approximately 2 inches in width and 18 inches long. It is typically 0.5 mm to 1.0 mm in thickness, and has an overall dimensions roughly of 18 inches wide and 20 inches (rectangular shape) long or could be longer in length or width.
The backside of the placemat 50 uses a possible location for the pressure sensitive adhesive which adheres 60, 70, 80, 90 and 100 to the table. The adhesive layers of this invention can be made of any known pressure-sensitive adhesive material. As used herein, the term “pressure-sensitive” refers to any releasable adhesive or releasable tenacious means. Adhesive compositions suitable for placemats include, for example, the water-based, pressure-sensitive adhesives such as acrylate adhesives, e.g., vinyl acetate-2 ethylhexyl acetate copolymer which is generally combined with tackifiers, such as ethyleneamine. Alternatively, the adhesive may comprise a rapid setting thermoplastic “hot melt” adhesive or two-sided adhesive tape.
From the foregoing it can be realized that this invention provides a new concept of disposable placemats, for commercial use. The advantages over the prior art are covering the bottom of the tables, low cost, disposable, and increased cleanliness by curious small children.
Operation—Figs
The manner of using the children's disposable placemat is to cover the bottom 30 and 40, lip 30, and top 10 of the table, as seen in
As seen in
As seen in
Once the child is done using the placemat, the parent can discard of it.
Advantages
From the descriptions above, a number of advantages of the children's disposable placemat become evident:
Accordingly, the reader will see that this disposable placemat can be used easily and conveniently to protect the child while he/she is eating and to help protect the child's hand from touching the foreign substances under the table. Furthermore, this disposable placemat has the additional advantages in that
Although the description above contains many specificites, these should not be construed as limiting the scope of the invention but as merely providing illustrations of some of the presently preferred embodiments of this invention. For example, this disposable placemat can have other shapes, such as oval, circular, triangular, etc.; the table lip channel (the under mat portion) can have other shapes; with or without perforated line; the adhesive strips could cover approximately the whole backside of the placemat; the design on the placemat can have different designs, different colors, etc.
Thus the scope of the invention should be determined by the appended claims and their legal equivalents, rather than by the examples given.
