Not Applicable
Not Applicable
Not Applicable
1. Field of Invention
This invention relates to article holders, specifically to such holders where articles suspended above ground by gravity.
2. Background of the Invention
Article holders been used to keep brooms, mops, rakes etc. organized at the workplace and at home. Efforts have been made to design holders which are easy and fast to operate, reliable and inexpensive.
One type of holders have means to support wider parts of articles, but as a drawback, articles have to be turned upside down.
Other holders use hooks to suspend articles by holes or loopy extensions present in some articles. To use these you have to slow down substantially besides the obvious limitation that not all articles have holes or loops.
Numerous holders employ moving spherical or cylindrical members to wedge articles in suspended positions, as in U.S. Pat. No. 2,953,255 to Higgins (1960), U.S. Pat. No. 3,294,350 to Grottola et al. (1966), U.S. Pat. No. 3,422,960 to Ell et al. (1969), U.S. Pat. No. 4,134,499 to Joswig (1979), U.S. Pat. No. 5,165,629 to Breveglieri (1992), U.S. Pat. No. 5,342,010 to Huang (1994). These could be complex to manufacture and they require upward motion to engage and disengage articles.
My invention is related to holders in U.S. Pat. No. 961,234 to Hoover (1910), U.S. Pat. No. 1,206,655 to Belcher (1916), U.S. Pat. No. 1,398,127 to Collins (1921), U.S. Pat. No. 1,447,579 to Thomas (1923), U.S. Pat. No. 1,971,993 to Schlosser (1934), U.S. Pat. No. 2,020,274 to Bateman (1935), U.S. Pat. No. 2,046,825 to Kneff (1936), U.S. Pat. No. 2,422,891 to Dickson (1947), U.S. Pat. No. 2,488,664 to Gruber (1949), U.S. Pat. No. 4,496,124 to Cole (1985), U.S. Pat. No. 4,795,038 to Johnson (1989), U.S. Pat. No. 4,880,192 to Vom Braucke et. al. (1989), U.S. Pat. No. 5,180,066 to McArdle (1993), U.S. Pat. No. 5,558,236 to Williams (1996), U.S. Pat. No. 5,624,043 to Baptista (1997). They use cantilever principle through stationary or pivoting members with notches or holes to suspend articles. However these holders require elaborate movements to engage and disengage and in most cases the use of two hands.
Accordingly, several objects and advantages of the present invention are:
In accordance with the present invention a holder comprises a rectangular body having at least one angled channel to receive elongated articles and means for mounting.
FIGS. 4 to 8 show perspective view of alternative embodiments of holder.
A preferred embodiment of the holder of the present invention is illustrated in
The holder also features two holes for mounting, placed in center of back wall of the two outermost channels, piercing holder completely.
The holder is about 36′ in length, 4″ in height and 3″ in depth. The channels are about 1½″ wide and 1½″ deep. The mounting holes are ¼″ in diameter.
FIGS. 4-8—Alternative Embodiments
The embodiment shown in
Operation
The manner of using the holder to support articles consists of the following steps:
Accordingly, the reader will see that the holder of this invention can be used to store articles with minimal change to the articles' operational position, with a use of one hand with minimal effort and without the need to touch other articles or the holder. Furthermore the holder allows articles to be separated from each other ruling out entanglement, yet occupy minimal space into the room. Holder allows for easy and quick installation. The holder is quick, easy and cost effective to manufacture but provides a holder with a long life. The channels accommodate a wide range of article diameters with a uniform size.
Although the description above contains many specificities, 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, edges and corners could be rounded, channels could have liners, holder could be composed of multiple materials, holder could have a built in stand or extentions to be hanged from ceiling etc.
Thus the scope of the invention should be determined by the appended claims and their legal equivalents, rather than by the examples given.