The present invention generally relates to devices for holding kitchen utensils. More specifically, the present invention is concerned with a kitchen utensil such as a spoon, ladle, fork, or spatula, provided with an integral clip cooperating with a utensil efficient portion for attaching the utensil to a rim of a container such as a pot, a saucepan or a bowl.
Properly holding, hanging or supporting a kitchen utensil such as a spoon or ladle during use in cooking or serving is a concern that has deserved a fair level of attention over the past years. Indeed, the kitchen utensil, such as a spoon used for stirring food in a pan, for example, is repeatedly put in contact with food ingredients and accumulates residues from the food on the efficient portion thereof. It is generally not desirable to leave the utensil leaned inside the container between uses, as it can interfere with food preparation or slide too deeply into in the food and have its handle portion soiled. Therefore, soiled kitchen utensils typically need to be repeatedly put aside out of the container for certain periods of time, and are thus a potential cause of dirtying of the peripheral area such as cook-stove, counter, appliances, table, floor, pieces of furniture, clothes, etc. by direct contact or by dripping. The utensil being put aside may also be subject to damages such as burning or melting that can be caused by a heat source or a hot surface.
Miscellaneous types of stands, holders or rests to be placed on a stove, a counter or a table and on which a utensil can be momentarily deposited nearby a container are well known for years. Although these products are designed to prevent direct contact with other surrounding surfaces, dripping along the paths separating the device form the container(s) may still occur. Besides this limitation, the device itself has nevertheless to be washed thoroughly after use, and one may have to rely on as many devices as the number of utensils used during preparation or serving. One must also consider the cost of buying the devices, as well as the necessity of storing them around the kitchen and retrieving them when needed. Moreover, depositing an efficient portion of a kitchen utensil to be reused into the food onto such a device may create contamination of the food by transportation of contaminants present on the device.
Another type of devices, comprising clips or holders and/or clamps to be temporarily attached to a rim of a container to hold a cooking utensil, have also been proposed to address the problem. Their basically valuable concept aims at maintaining the efficient portion of the utensil above the container, to prevent the utensil from falling or sliding into the food and dripping out of the container. Examples of such devices are taught in U.S. Pat. No. 1,483,833 issued in 1923 to Potter, U.S. Pat. No. 3,931,668 granted to Hombach in 1976, U.S. Pat. No. 5,518,211 granted to Gaskill et al. in May 1996, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,730,405 issued to Nichols on Mar. 24 1998. These holding devices fail to propose a really universal structure, which can be conveniently used to retain different types of utensil in a user friendly manner. Again, these devices must further be bought separately from the utensil or cookware, must be stored in the kitchen and retrieved when needed, and washed after use, which may rapidly discourage usage. Using such a device is also inappropriate when more than one utensil are being used simultaneously.
It is also a common practice to provide kitchen utensils such as, spoons, ladles, spatulas and forks with a hook at the proximal end of the handle thereof to enable suspension of the utensil to a supporting device such as flat bar or loop provided nearby the cooking area. Openings or hooks provided at the proximal or median portion of especially long handles, most often fabricated through punching and/or stamping of the handle material, have also been contemplated in the prior art. Peg bars or straight edges can be used to suspend such utensils. However, dripping along the paths traveled between the containers and the supporting device are still likely to occur and require cleaning. Also, even though hooks may be provided, their position on the handle is such that suspension from a rim of a typical container can not be envisaged since it would not allow the efficient distal portion of the utensil to clear the container supporting surface, most often being a heating surface, since the overall length of the utensil is usually much greater than the height of the container. This is especially true when using a low profile pan.
However, a few prior patents disclose holding devices formed integrally into an implement, at a position proximal to the efficient portion thereof, to enable the implement to be attached to a rim of a container. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,201,121 issued to Heiberg in April 1993, a kitchen implement is provided with a mounting opening through the implement sheet material forming a pair of arcuate edges and an outer projecting lip for engagement with outer and inner surfaces of a bowl to mount the implement thereto. Similarly, Desjardin in U.S. Pat. No. 5,065,977 granted on Nov. 19 1991, teaches a tool wherein an opening is provided through a flat heel portion of a flat blade, defining a resiliently flexible tongue and a pair of shoulders cooperating with the tongue to engage a groove in an annular rim of a container and thereby clipping the tool onto the rim with the blade extending vertically into the container.
Although such integral implement mounting devices successfully enable an implement to be held on a rim of a container with its efficient portion extending into the container, their structures are not suitable for application to kitchen utensils requiring a solid fluid tight and often elongated efficient portion. Furthermore, they could not comply with utensils often provided with an elongated handle portion causing the center of gravity of the utensil to be located above the mounting device, which would render the mounting unstable and cause flipping of the utensil out of the container.
Although the above examples show that some solutions have been contemplated in the prior art to address the problem of temporarily holding utensils during use in cooperation with a container, these devices are nevertheless presenting major limitations and drawbacks and are lacking important features necessary for them to provide a convenient, efficient and cost effective solution to that concern.
It would therefore be a significant advance in the art of utensil and implement supporting devices and systems to provide a utensil or implement wherein a clip is integrated and cooperating with a distal efficient portion thereof, thereby enabling direct clipping of the utensil or implement to rims of containers, including most low profile pans, without compromising the functional integrity of the utensil or implement.
An object of the present invention is therefore to provide an integral utensil and clip device obviating the limitations and drawbacks of the prior art devices and systems.
More specifically, in accordance with the present invention, there is provided a utensil with integral clip device for securing the utensil to a top portion of a generally vertically extending wall defining an inner face and an outer face. The utensil comprises a proximal handle portion and a distal efficient portion having a back portion defining a first surface and a tab defining a second surface extending generally parallel to said first surface and proximate thereto, whereby the utensil can be secured to the wall with the handle portion extending generally upward, by engaging the wall between the first surface and the second surface.
There is further provided a utensil wherein said tab defines a free end, said free end cooperating with said first surface to define a tapering inlet.
There is further provided a utensil wherein the second surface includes a groove, transversal to a major axis of the utensil, for nesting at least a portion of a lip extending outwardly from said outer face of said wall.
There is further provided a utensil wherein said groove defines at least one chamfered edge.
There is further provided a utensil wherein the second surface includes a protruding portion for engaging the outer face of the wall at at least one point of contact.
There is further provided a utensil wherein the second surface includes a pair of protruding portions for engaging the outer face of the wall at at least two points of contact, transversally spaced-apart with respect to a major axis of the utensil.
There is further provided a utensil wherein the tab includes a resilient member whereby the spacing between the second surface and the first surface can be slightly expanded for engaging the wall therein.
There is further provided a utensil wherein the tab includes a resilient member whereby the spacing between the second surface and the first surface can be slightly expanded for engaging the wall with a clamping force.
There is further provided a utensil wherein the tab includes a root connecting the second surface to the first surface, said root defining a stop member adapted to abut on a top edge of the wall.
There is further provided a utensil wherein said tab defines a free end, and the second surface has a portion converging with at least a portion of the first surface in a direction extending from the root to said free end.
There is further provided a utensil wherein at least the first surface and the second surface include a resilient material.
There is further provided a utensil wherein the efficient portion includes an external efficient surface made of resilient material and a core made of a harder material, the handle portion being made from said harder material extending into the efficient portion to form the core thereof.
There is further provided a utensil wherein the first surface is solid and generally flat.
There is further provided a utensil wherein the first surface includes a protruding portion for engaging the wall at at least one point of contact.
There is further provided a utensil wherein the first surface includes a pair of protruding portions for engaging an inner face of the wall at at least two points of contact, transversally spaced-apart with respect to a major axis of the utensil.
There is further provided a utensil wherein the back portion of the efficient portion defines a fore portion and heel portion connected to the handle portion, the tab extending from said heel portion so that the tab does not extend beyond a virtual plane generally defined by the fore portion.
There is further provided a utensil with integral clip device for securing the utensil to a top portion of a container having a generally vertically extending wall defining an inner face, an outer face and a top edge, the utensil comprising: a proximal handle portion, and a distal efficient portion having a back portion defining an inner face engaging surface and a tab, said tab including i) an outer face engaging surface extending generally parallel to said inner face engaging surface and proximate thereto, ii) a root connecting said outer face engaging surface to said inner face engaging surface and defining a stop member, and iii) a free end cooperating with said inner face engaging surface for forming a tapering clip inlet, whereby the utensil can be secured to the wall of the container with the handle portion extending generally upward, by inserting the wall through the inlet, for engaging the inner face with the inner face engaging surface, the outer face with the outer face engaging surface, and abutting the top edge on the stop member.
There is further provided a utensil wherein said outer face engaging surface includes a protruding portion near said free end for engaging the outer face of the wall at at least one point of contact.
There is further provided a utensil with integral clip device for securing the utensil to a top portion of a generally vertically extending supportive wall defining an inner face, an outer face and a top edge, the utensil comprising: a proximal handle portion, a distal efficient portion having a back portion defining a first surface, and a tab portion, said tab including i) a second surface extending generally parallel to said first surface and proximate thereto, ii) a collar assembled adjacent said first surface, iii) a root connecting said second surface to said collar and defining a stop member, and iv) a free end cooperating with said first surface for forming a clip inlet, whereby the utensil can be secured to the wall with the handle portion extending generally upward, by inserting the wall through the inlet, for engaging the inner face with the first surface, the outer face with the second surface, and abutting the top edge on the stop member.
There is further provided a utensil wherein said collar is removably assembled between said handle portion and said efficient portion on a connecting member extending distal from said handle and engaging into said efficient portion for removably attaching said efficient portion to said handle portion.
Other objects, advantages and features of the present invention will become more apparent upon reading of the following non-restrictive description of preferred embodiments thereof, given by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings.
In the appended drawings:
a is a detailed lateral cross sectional view of a clipping portion of an integral utensil and clip device according to an embodiment of the present invention;
b is top cross sectional view according to line BB of
Identical numerals in the drawings represent similar parts throughout the description.
Generally stated, the present invention relates to an integral utensil and clip device 1 for attachment to a generally vertical wall 101, as illustrated in
The utensil 1 comprises a proximal handle portion 2 and a distal efficient portion 3 represented by a fluid tight receptacle (see
As better represented in
In the embodiment illustrated in
The embodiment of
Turning back to
In the embodiment of
For the rest, the detachable clip device is similarly structured and functions as in the above-described embodiments of the invention, with tab 8 cooperating with the back portion 4 of the efficient portion 3 for engaging inner and outer faces of a supporting wall 101 to hold utensil 1.
As illustrated in
One can thus easily appreciate that the above described embodiments according to the present invention provide effective solutions for holding a cooking or serving utensil during use with pots, pans or like containers, while maintaining the peripheral area clean. Therefore, it can be seen that the integral utensil and clip device can be advantageously used in miscellaneous applications, by accordingly changing the functionality of the efficient portion thereof.
Although the present invention has been described hereinabove by way of preferred embodiments thereof, it can be modified, without departing from the spirit and nature of the subject invention as defined in the appended claims.
Number | Date | Country | Kind |
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2,489,633 | Jan 2005 | CA | national |