Patent Application
20190366948
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The disclosure and prior art relates to gutter devices and more particularly pertains to a new gutter device for diverting wiper fluid away from a rear surface of a vehicle.
An embodiment of the disclosure meets the needs presented above by generally comprising a vehicle that has a rear windshield, a rear surface and a rear windshield wiper that is positioned on the rear windshield. The rear windshield wiper includes a wiper fluid dispenser that selectively releases a fluid onto the rear windshield for cleaning the rear windshield. A gutter is coupled to the vehicle and is aligned with the rear windshield. The gutter captures the fluid when the fluid is released onto the rear windshield and directs the fluid to a predetermined drain location. Moreover, the gutter inhibits the fluid from running down the vehicle thereby enhancing visual appearance of the vehicle with respect to inhibiting streaks caused by the fluid on the vehicle.
There has thus been outlined, rather broadly, the more important features of the disclosure in order that the detailed description thereof that follows may be better understood, and in order that the present contribution to the art may be better appreciated. There are additional features of the disclosure that will be described hereinafter and which will form the subject matter of the claims appended hereto.
The objects of the disclosure, along with the various features of novelty which characterize the disclosure, are pointed out with particularity in the claims annexed to and forming a part of this disclosure.
The disclosure will be better understood and objects other than those set forth above will become apparent when consideration is given to the following detailed description thereof. Such description makes reference to the annexed drawings wherein:
With reference now to the drawings, and in particular to
As best illustrated in
A gutter 24 is coupled to the vehicle 12 and the gutter 24 is aligned with the rear windshield 14. The gutter 24 captures the fluid 22 when the fluid 22 is released onto the rear windshield 14 and directs the fluid 22 to a predetermined drain location. The predetermined drain location may be a lower edge of the vehicle 12 or a reservoir. The gutter 24 inhibits the fluid 22 from running down the vehicle 12 thereby enhancing the visual appearance of the vehicle 12 with respect to inhibiting streaks caused by the fluid 22 running down the vehicle 12.
The gutter 24 has a bottom wall 26 and an outer wall 28 extending upwardly therefrom, and the outer wall 28 is aligned with and is coextensive with a perimeter of the bottom wall 26. The outer wall 28 has a first side 30 and a distal edge 32 with respect to the bottom wall 26 defining an opening into the gutter 24. The first side 30 is coupled to the rear surface 16 of the vehicle 12 having the gutter 24 being aligned with and being coextensive with an intersection between the rear windshield 14 and the rear surface 16.
The gutter 24 is elongated to extend along an entire width of the rear windshield 14 and the gutter 24 is positioned beneath the rear windshield wiper 18. The bottom wall 26 has a drain 34 extending therethrough for draining the fluid 22 from the gutter 24. A hose 36 is fluidly coupled to the drain 34 and extends to the predetermined drain location. Thus, the hose 36 directs the fluid 22 to the predetermined drain location when the fluid 22 drains from the gutter 24.
In use, the gutter 24 captures the fluid 22 that runs downwardly on the rear windshield 14 when the rear windshield wiper 18 releases the fluid 22 on the rear windshield 14. Thus, the gutter 24 inhibits the fluid 22 from running downwardly along the rear surface 16 of the vehicle 12. In this way the gutter 24 inhibits dirt streaks or other unsightly formations on the vehicle 12 resulting from the fluid 22 running on the vehicle 12. The fluid 22 flows through the drain 34, into the hose 36 and is directed to the predetermined drain location.
With respect to the above description then, it is to be realized that the optimum dimensional relationships for the parts of an embodiment enabled by the disclosure, to include variations in size, materials, shape, form, function and manner of operation, assembly and use, are deemed readily apparent and obvious to one skilled in the art, and all equivalent relationships to those illustrated in the drawings and described in the specification are intended to be encompassed by an embodiment of the disclosure.
Therefore, the foregoing is considered as illustrative only of the principles of the disclosure. Further, since numerous modifications and changes will readily occur to those skilled in the art, it is not desired to limit the disclosure to the exact construction and operation shown and described, and accordingly, all suitable modifications and equivalents may be resorted to, falling within the scope of the disclosure. In this patent document, the word “comprising” is used in its non-limiting sense to mean that items following the word are included, but items not specifically mentioned are not excluded. A reference to an element by the indefinite article “a” does not exclude the possibility that more than one of the element is present, unless the context clearly requires that there be only one of the elements.
