Patent Application
20180110392
This invention is directed to a foot floor mopping and cleaning soft-material device and more specifically to features thereof that improve efficiency compared to existing foot floor flat soft material devices that mop and clean floors using foot force to function as a floor mopping and cleaning device. Foot floor mopping and cleaning devices have been undoubtedly used throughout history by multiple civilizations to remove and clean fluids off a floor surface without engaging the use of the upper extremities or bending at the knees or by using an attached pole or handle. There are multiple types of foot mopping and cleaning devices currently on the market, some of which attach to the foot using multiple means that may have additional attachments, such as hard scrubbing surfaces, that facilitate cleaning and mopping of a surface. However, current foot mopping and cleaning soft-material devices, as described in the prior art, do not optimize contacting the mop's lower material absorbent layer to the floor surface. Also, they do not optimize the use of foot force to help clean the surface area with variable pulsed hydraulic action. There is no device in prior art known to the inventors of the inventive device, also referred hereinto as Dual Sided Foot Mop, that identifies use of a composite foot mopping and cleaning device comprised of three layers of materials attached by stitching having two flexible micro-absorbent outer material layers encapsulating a third central layer of porous, compressible but relatively structurally stable material in the horizontal orientation. The three material layers of the invention are stitched together to stabilize the horizontal shape of the inventive device and to give variable three-dimensional geometric surface contour to the outer micro-absorbent top and bottom material layers; whereby while functioning to clean fluid from a surface the mopping and cleaning device maintains its general horizontal flat shape to optimize absorption and by simultaneously integrating a variable pulsing effect of fluid impulses being ejected from the compressed porous material using downward foot force that varies with the variable contours of both the top and bottom material layers to improve the general cleaning effect of the surface by pulsing and expanding the bottom micro-absorbent surface layer and with hydraulic pulsed wave effect also impacting the floor surface for improved cleaning. The contoured surface also, by virtue of its irregularly contoured and increased surface area with increased coefficient of friction, facilitates maintaining foot contact with the invention's top layer's surface without the need of attachment components, though multiple means of securely attaching the foot to the invention could be added to the invention's structural design for additional foot positional attachment, which could include straps, ties or belts and other methods used and understood by the existing art.
An improvement to existing foot floor mopping and cleaning flat soft material devices is provided. Existing foot floor mopping and cleaning flat material devices when used are flexible and deformable, decreasing contact area and absorbance between mopping cycles thereby decreasing efficiency of the device to mop and clean the floor. The inventive improvement of the Dual Sided Foot Mop that transforms current foot floor mopping and cleaning flat material device designs comprises:
a) A central porous compressible material layer positioned between and secured by stitching to two micro-absorbent flexible material layers, one on top and one on the bottom, that provides general shape stability to the improved device in order to optimize surface contact of the invention's absorbent material to the floor surface to remove fluid from that surface.
b) A central porous compressible layer of material between two micro-absorbent flexible layers that are secured and stitched together around the border periphery with a variable design of stitching that is centrally placed on the otherwise flat surface, such as in a serpiginous, horseshoe or wave shape, that as a result alters the surface contour with varying thickness of the surface of the outer micro-absorbent material layers. Variable surface geometrical contouring allows repetitive and variable downward foot force transduction, transferring pressure through the top layer surface to the bottom material layer resulting in a hydraulic pulsing effect using the fluid contained within the variably contoured and porous surface of the middle layer to impact the bottom layer of micro-absorbent material, both by expanding the micro-absorbent material surface area with pulsing action and with some fluid passing through the bottom micro-absorbent material as a pulsed fluid energy wave onto the floor surface being mopped that facilitates more efficient hydraulic cleaning action of the floor surface and helps optimize absorbing capacity of material, as compared to simply scrubbing and mopping the floor surface.
Benefit of the Dual Sided Foot Mop with its mopping and cleaning action of a floor surface is that it functions more efficiently, taking less time and with greater effectiveness in mopping and cleaning using a more stabilized absorbing surface integrated with foot power in a more dynamic way than described by prior art.
The Dual Sided Foot Mop will save time and money because of its efficiency compared to the prior art, due to its stabilized surface contact area and absorbing ability and its contoured surface that facilitates a pulsing hydraulic cleaning action with foot force. The Dual Sided Foot Mop is laid on a contact surface to be cleaned. The variable contours of the top and bottom layers are in variable contact with the surface to be mopped and cleaned. Neither the top nor the bottom sides are perfectly flat though there is a stabilizing material component that is positioned between the top and bottom absorbent materials with a preferable wave stitching that mends and binds all the materials together and also provides variable contours. The top and bottom surfaces have variable surface geometry between the sewn borders that present variable thicknesses of material in different places. The material surfaces also have increased the total contact surface area by varying the contour, for improved cleaning of the surface using dynamic pulsed foot-generated hydraulic action. The top and bottom layers are reversible for positioning under the foot. The Top side faces the bottom and the top side is where you place your foot. It improves upon the function of prior art of the existing foot mops which tend to fold up and/or not utilize a large surface area efficiently due to the fact that they don't have the stability of optimizing their surface contact. The Dual Sided Foot Mop size is usually sized within a range for normal foot use, with size dimensions usually within 6″ to 24″ per side, with each Dual Sided Foot Mop having a top side, a bottom side and at least being rounded in shape or having at least a three-sided shape or more. A preferred size is 14.75″ length per side in the shape of a square.
All four sides of the preferred size are sewn together (with a preferable wave pattern stitching) with one piece of stabilizing porous compressible material having the preferred size of 14.25″ length per side that is placed between the two microfibers material layers, one layer on top and the other layer on the bottom. Variable terrain allows different pulsing on the dual sided foot mop with pressure on the foot because of the wave stitching that binds all materials and the stabilizing material gives it variable terrain with the wave pattern throughout the mop. It allows multiple variations to works more efficiently than other foot mops because of pressure thresholds and large surface area that stays in its shape and form while in use on the floor. It functions better than the existing foot mops currently available because of the stabilizer that allows for the entire surface area of the dual sided foot mop to maximize the surface area and has variable geography that when pressure is added with a foot. It will allow for pulsating action with variable terrain because of the when you put your weight it introduces variable geometry and lets you manually pulsate variable surfaces and is further facilitated by scrubber. Once it is used it can be washed and hung up to dry or put away, because of the nylon loop hanger that is attached.
Although a detailed description of Dual Sided Foot Mop according to one embodiment of the present invention has been provided, it should be understood that the scope of the invention is not to be limited thereby. The scope of the invention is to be determined by the claims which follows and any modifications or alternatives apparent to one of ordinary skill in the art.
