This application claims the benefit of PPA application number 62656320 filed Apr. 11, 2018 by the present inventors which is incorporated by reference.
Several different types of women's clothing may include a contoured insert pad (51) which is usually made of foam and is designed to smooth, shape, and conceal the details of the wearer's breast. These insert pads are located inside the breast cup lining (52) of clothing, brassieres, sports brassieres, or bathing suit tops. They are typically removable through a small slot or gap in the article of clothing's side seam (53), where the brassiere structure goes beneath the wearer's arm. Since the removable insert pads are often not affixed to the article of clothing in any way, they can fall out or become bunched up while storing, transporting, or laundering the clothing. Insertion and alignment of the insert pad can be very difficult and time consuming to achieve due to the fact that the access hole is usually quite small and located on the side seam of the article of clothing. This access hole is not located closely enough to where the pad will ultimately need to be placed so the fingers of most individuals are simply not long enough to manage this task effectively. Currently, the method suggested by merchants and manufacturers of these insert pads is to fold or roll it up, slide it into the article of clothing, and then massage the article of clothing from the outside to open, flatten and align the insert pad into place. This method is both time consuming and difficult to perform since it must be accomplished by feel alone. This is only compounded by the fact that many insert pads are orientation specific. Therefore, a need exists for novel means and methods by which a user will be capable of inserting these insert pads accurately into the article of clothing in a timely and efficient manner.
This application details a method to insert, remove, or adjust, an insert pad (51) into an article of clothing (57). The clothing referred to in this application, generally consists of women's bathing suit tops, sports brassieres, and the shaping pads used in them, but this application applies to any flexible pad or insert which must be inserted, removed, or adjusted, into any cavity which via an opening which is either small relative to the cavity or remotely located. The method, as described here, makes use of a tool which is similar in structure to a surgical forceps. The tool consists of two halves (58,59), each of which have a handle (60) and a jaw (55). The halves are interconnected at a pivot (61) which lies between the handle and jaw for each respective half. The jaw has a toothed compressing surface (62) and a smooth outer surface (63). The toothed compressing surface has teeth structured in such a way as to allow the protrusion of a tooth from one jaw (64) to fit into the hollow of a tooth on the opposing jaw (65). While this is the tool used in this example, in practice significant modifications can be made to suit the need of that use. For instance, the jaws could be hydraulically or electromechanically actuated without affecting the method.
The application consists of 3 independent methods, being: 1) The method for inserting an insert pad (51) into an article of clothing (57); 2) The method for removing an insert pad from an article of clothing; 3) The method for adjusting an insert pad which is already inserted into an article of clothing.
The first independent method of the application comprises a method for inserting an insert pad (51) into an article of clothing. In the preferred embodiment of this method: First, the tool (54) is aligned to the insert pad as seen in
Then the jaws of the tool may be closed again to allow it to be removed from the article of clothing as shown in
In the secondary embodiment of the method for inserting an insert pad (53) into an article of clothing (57): First, the tool (54) is aligned to one edge of the insert pad as shown in
The second independent method of the application comprises a method to remove an insert pad (51) from an article of clothing (57). First, the tool (54) is inserted into the article of clothing as shown in
The third independent method of the application comprises a method to adjust an insert pad (51) which is already inserted into an article of clothing (57). First, the tool is inserted into the article of clothing as shown in
We have concluded, by using the methods outlined in this application, that the tasks of inserting, removing, and adjusting removable clothing insert pads can be completed much more quickly and with much less effort than before. In this application, significant emphasis has been placed on the use of these methods on articles of clothing. However, they apply to any instance of a pad or sheet of material, which can be rolled, needing to be placed into a cavity via an access opening which is either small or remotely located. Adding a pad under an existing carpeted floor without having to remove the carpet, or applying a patch to the inside of a tank via the filling port are just a couple of examples of how these methods can be applied to other industries and problems. Accordingly, the scope should be determined not by the embodiments illustrated, but by the appended claims and their legal equivalents.
Number | Date | Country | |
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20200323281 A1 | Oct 2020 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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62656320 | Apr 2018 | US |