Patent Application
20070119879
The system of hangers herein described follow the methods and solutions included in the previous patent file WO 2004/008919 (Escatllar, 29.01.2004) hereon called mother patent.
A system of clothes hangers and other related solutions mainly for home closet organizing.
Until recently, the traditional hanger with a hook was the only option for hanging all kinds of garments. There are many disadvantages within the use of traditional hangers so that many garments are folded and piled up in shelves as an easier or faster alternative. For hanging pants, different pull-out frames are now being tested.
Said mother patent was providing some ideas for an integrated way of hanging pants along with most of those garments that are stored folded instead of being hung in traditional hangers. The present document provides mainly a very practical embodiment for those ideas, along with an updated version of the methods and some other solutions for a clothes hanging integrated system.
The document U.S. Pat. No. 4,579,262 (Keenan, 1 Apr. 1986) provides a hanger for socks within shop display that might resemble the embodiment of the present invention, but it does not raise any of the many problems about closet organizing of the present document, and the solution is not useful to solve any of them. Its second claim is a generalization of the first one that has no support in the rest of the document and is still including added parts adjacent to the hanger bar that make it not useful for the purposes of the present invention. The Keenan document is in a different field of invention, failing totally in providing any integrated solution for closets, while the present document does so with solutions that are useful as embodiments of the ideas and methods already started in the cited mother patent. Further more, the Keenan document is from 19 years ago and never helped generating, neither the hangers herein provided, nor the methods that make them useful.
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The present invention provides a system of open clothes hangers that is useful almost with all kinds of pieces of cloth. It develops the methods and ideas of the cited mother patent to bring a solution with a large amount of advantages in a single system. They are important, as much as the embodiments, their combination with the methods and purposes, the related advantages, and the improvements for a more practical and integrated closet organizing system.
The present invention provides an updated way of clothes storing that is more practical, accessible and quick than the ones in use in many cases. It is also useful in short closets in which traditional hangers can't be used and in high parts where the shelves are hardly reached.
In the following figures, which are all of them side elevational views, some different versions are explained in further details:
Physically, the system consists of two parallel clothes bars from which some open clothes hangers are suspended, being sliding along said bars.
The open clothes hanger consists of an elongated support piece, or open bar, from which the piece of cloth will hang, and hooks on both ends of the bar that are the kind of hooks useful for removably suspending the open bar in horizontal position from two parallel clothes bars. The hooks are oriented same direction and are the same kind of hooks of any other clothes hanger to be suspended from a clothes bar.
The hanger has no parts round the open bar, except for underneath if necessary, so that the piece of cloth can be directly draped over or folded round the open bar and remain hanging on both sides of said open bar, in the way already shown in the cited mother patent. Thus, the open hanger has got an open bar in horizontal position that is much more accessible than the corresponding bar of traditional hangers.
The hanger bar, or open bar, might be 30 cm to 50 cm long depending on the types of pieces of cloth to be hung, in most cases between 35 cm and 45 cm.
Optionally, the hanger can have a handle on an end of the bar for holding it more comfortably. The handle is useful in most cases and avoids the need of repeatedly touching the garments, specially in shop display. The hangers having a horizontal or slightly inclining handle (
The hangers can include means for adjusting its length to the measures of every closet, for instance a plastic or other hanger made of two or more parts that overlap each other along the open bar.
If the open bar is thick enough, the garment will get less creased in the folding line over the bar. In special cases, like delicate garments on hangers made of wire, a removable part added along the open bar might be useful.
The hangers herein included are useful for:
By following the methods of the mother patent all kinds of folded pieces of cloth, in addition to pants, like t-shirts, sweaters, shirts, towels, sheets, tablecloths, etc, can be hung from these open hangers. It takes the same effort than folding them for piling them up in shelves or drawers, but it has numerous advantages:
For storing any piece of cloth using an open clothes hanger, these steps are followed:
Usually, pants are hung in this way:
As illustrated in the mother patent, this method is meant for the pants to hang down the same distance from the clothes bars than the other kinds of garments:
Garments having sleeves, like sweaters, t-shirts or woolen jerseys, can be stored in the open hangers by following the traditional way of folding them with the sleeves on its back, as shown in the cited mother patent and in document DE 201 20 463 U (Muemtaz Piri, 2002-04-25) which invention would be quite practical with these hangers:
This method corresponds with a way of folding sweaters, t-shirts, and the like garments having sleeves, which is becoming widely used nowadays. It allows folding the pieces without spreading them on a surface, just while holding them by hand:
Last two methods are useful also with sleeveless shirts, and mainly with any garment having a narrow collar. Such collars get deformed if placed in traditional hangers and also make hanging more difficult, so they are usually stored folded. The same thing applies to delicate woolen pieces.
As already seen, having this open hangers system in a closet allows hanging, in addition to pants, almost every other kind of folded pieces of cloth, like t-shirts, jerseys, sweaters, scarfs, towels, bed linen, tablecloths, etc. Such folded pieces are much more easily accessible than if piled up in high shelves or blind drawers, and more easily hung than in traditional hangers in many cases.
Thus, the open hangers are a perfect complementary option to traditional hangers. Closets can be easily equipped with means for supporting three parallel clothes bars, allowing to mount either a central bar or two parallel ones. This will facilitate an easy updating of the distribution between traditional hangers and the open hangers herein provided.
Although the already described models, along with plastic ones, are nowadays the preferred manufacturing options, there could be many others within the spirit of the invention. These hangers can include any of the accessories and finishings of traditional hangers, and also be used for commercial or industrial purposes, like shop display or clothes transportation.
The ideas included in both the present and mother patent files, raise new needs and objects. They provide solutions of great added value that combine methods and designs to create an improved and integrated system for closet organizing, a quick and directly accessible way of clothes storing. The claims hereafter enclosed are necessarily referred to formal models which simplicity does not adequately represent the complexity and considerable scope of the invention, which is more exhaustively represented along the present document as a whole.
