Patent Application
20240358175
The entire disclosure of Japanese patent Application No. 2023-073942, filed on Apr. 28, 2023, is incorporated herein by reference in its entirety.
The present invention relates to a scooping-up and receiving body structure that is used during eating food on a dish, and is used at a time of performing last scooping of a small amount of food remaining on the dish using a spoon.
Conventionally, in a case where a person wants to perform last scooping of a small amount of remaining food placed on a dish, it is almost impossible to prevent falling of such a food from a raised peripheral edge portion of the dish. Accordingly, he/she cannot properly scoop up the remaining small amount of food. On the other hand, when he/she intends to forcibly perform such a scooping-up operation, there is a concern that the remaining food sticks out from the dish.
When the small amount of food remaining on the dish cannot be scooped up in this manner, time and efforts such as pinching food using additionally prepared sticks or a pair of folks becomes necessary and hence, the eating operation becomes cumbersome.
To overcome such an inconvenience, the inventors of the present invention have invented an instrument for scooping up a remaining cooked rice or the like from a dish, and has been granted with several Japanese Design Registrations in addition to the Japanese Design Registration No 1648964 and the Japanese Design Registration No 1704493.
Such a scooping-up instrument is formed of a combination of: a clamping body that clamps a peripheral edge portion of a dish on which food is placed; and an inclined scooping-up plate that is contiguously formed with the clamping body. Further, the scooping-up instrument is configured such that a lower end edge portion of the plate is disposed so as to face an inner bottom surface of the dish, and a small amount of remaining food is scooped up by a spoon by making use of this inclined plate.
However, although such a scooping-up instrument adopts the structure that enables easy attaching of the instrument on a peripheral edge portion of the dish, the structure basically cannot bring an edge portion of a distal end of the scooping-up plate into contact with an inner bottom surface of the dish with certainty.
This is because, the structures and shapes of peripheral edge portions of dishes are not uniform or standardized. That is, dishes having various sizes exist and dishes having deformed shapes also exist. Accordingly, even when upper and lower clamp bodies of the scooping-up instrument are attached to a peripheral edge portion of a dish, a clamping posture varies depending on a dish and hence, it is difficult to constantly bring a distal end portion of the scooping-up plate into contact with an inner bottom surface of the dish. Accordingly, a gap is formed between the clamp body and the inner bottom surface of the dish and hence, there is a concern that, at the time of performing a scooping-up operation, a portion of scooped-up rice falls on an inner bottom surface of the dish through the gap.
In this manner, the raised shapes of the peripheral edge portions of the dishes differ from each other. Accordingly, even when the clamp body of the equipment for scooping up food that is placed on the dish is attached to the peripheral edge portion of the dish, it is not always the case that a lower end edge portion of the scooping-up plate in an inclined shape that is contiguously formed with the peripheral edge portion of the dish is brought into contact with the bottom surface of the dish. Accordingly, there is a drawback that a gap is formed between the lower end edge portion of the scooping-up plate and the inner bottom surface of the dish so that a portion of a scooped-up rice falls down whereby a scooping-up operation cannot be properly performed.
It is an object of the present invention to provide a scooping-up and receiving body structure for scooping up and receiving food on a dish that enables attaching of upper and lower clamp bodies on an edge portion of a dish even when the dish differs in size and shape, and further, brings a lower end edge portion of a scooping-up plate into contact with a bottom surface of the dish by biasing the lower edge portion of the scooping-up plate downward by pressing. With such a configuration, an operation for scooping up a small amount of remaining rice or the like can be performed without forming a gap between the lower end edge portion of the scooping-up plate and the bottom surface of the dish.
According to a first aspect of the present invention, there is provided a scooping-up and receiving body structure for scooping up and receiving food placed on a dish. The scooping-up and receiving body structure includes: an upper clamp body and a lower clamp body that are configured to be openable and closable about a lateral shaft and to be biased to a peripheral edge portion of the dish in a clamping manner; a space portion that is formed below the upper clamp body so as to avoid the peripheral edge portion of the dish; and a scooping-up plate that is contiguously formed with an edge portion of a distal end of the upper clamp body, is biased downward by pressing, and is formed in a semicircular shape as viewed in a plan view and in a curved shape as viewed in a longitudinal cross section.
According to a second aspect of the present invention, there is provided the scooping-up and receiving body structure for scooping up and receiving food placed on a dish, wherein the lower clamp body is formed of a resilient material so as to follow an outer side surface of a periphery of the dish as much as possible.
According to a third aspect of the present invention, there is provided the scooping-up and receiving body structure for scooping up and receiving food placed on a dish, wherein a swinging restricting lug that is configured to restrict swinging of the scooping-up and receiving body structure by being brought into contact with an upper surface of an outer side surface of the peripheral edge portion of the dish is formed on the upper clamp body in a protruding manner into the space portion that is formed for avoiding the edge portion of the dish.
According to the first aspect of the present invention, the scooping-up and receiving body structure for scooping up and receiving food placed on a dish includes the upper clamp body and the lower clamp body that are configured to be openable and closable about the lateral shaft and to be biased to the edge portion of the dish in a clamping manner; the space portion that is formed below the upper clamp body so as to avoid the edge portion of the dish; and the scooping-up plate that is contiguously formed with the edge portion of the distal end of the upper clamp body, is biased downward by pressing, and is formed in a semicircular shape as viewed in a plan view and in a curved shape as viewed in a longitudinal cross section. Accordingly, in a case where the upper and lower clamp bodies are attached to the peripheral edge portion of the dish, the scooping-up and receiving body structure can be fixed to the peripheral edge portion of the dish in a clamping manner with certainty while preventing the upper clamp body from interfering with a raised-shaped portion of the peripheral edge portion of the dish and, particularly, the scooping-up plate can be attached to the dish along the peripheral edge portion of the dish with certainty. Further, food remaining on a bottom surface of the dish can be collectively scooped up by a spoon or the like.
Further, with the use of the scooping-up plate that is contiguously formed with the edge portion of the distal end of the upper clamp body and is biased downward by pressing, the edge portion of the distal end of the scooping-up plate can be brought into contact with the inner bottom surface the dish with certainty and hence, there is no possibility that a gap is formed between the scooping-up plate and the dish. Accordingly, it is possible to acquire an advantageous effect that a small amount of last food remaining on the dish can be completely scooped up by way of the scooping-up plate.
According to the second aspect of the present invention, the lower clamp body is formed of a resilient material so as to follow the outer side surface of the periphery of the dish as much as possible. With such a configuration, when the peripheral edge portion of the dish is clamped by the upper and lower clamp bodies, the lower clamp body can be brought into contact with the lower bottom surface of the periphery of the dish along with the deformation of the lower bottom surface of the periphery of the dish with certainty and hence, accordingly, it is possible to acquire an advantageous effect that the scooping-up and receiving body structure can perform a clamping function with certainty also with respect to any deformed dishes.
According to the third aspect of the present invention, a swinging restricting lug that is configured to restrict swinging of the scooping-up and receiving body structure by being brought into contact with an upper surface of the outer side surface of the periphery of the dish is formed on the upper clamp body in a protruding manner into a space portion that is formed for avoiding the edge portion of the dish. With such a configuration, in a case where the peripheral edge portion of the dish is clamped by the upper and lower clamp bodies, by bringing the lower surface of the swinging restricting lug into contact with an upper surface of the peripheral edge portion of the dish. Accordingly, it is possible to acquire an advantageous effect that when a small amount of food remaining on the bottom surface of the dish is scooped up along the scooping-up plate by a spoon, swinging of the upper clamp body can be restricted and hence, food can be completely scooped up.
The gist of the present invention lies in that a scooping-up and receiving body structure for scooping up and receiving food placed on a dish includes an upper clamp body and a lower clamp body that are configured to be openable and closable about a lateral shaft and to be biased to an edge portion of the dish in a clamping manner; a space portion that is formed below the upper clamp body so as to avoid the edge portion of the dish; and a scooping-up plate that is contiguously formed with an edge of a distal end of the upper clamp body, is biased downward by pressing, and is formed in a semicircular shape as viewed in a plan view and in a curved shape as viewed in a in longitudinal cross section.
Further, the lower clamp body is configured such that the lower clamp body is formed of a resilient material so as to follow an outer side surface of the periphery of the dish as much as possible.
Further, the upper clamp body is configured such that the swinging restricting lug for restricting swinging of the upper clamp body by being brought into contact with the upper surface of the outer side surface of the periphery of the dish is formed on the clamp body such that the swinging restricting lug protrudes into a space portion that is formed for avoiding the edge portion of the dish.
An embodiment of the present invention is described in detail with reference to drawings.
In
That is, the upper and lower clamp bodies 1, 2 are configured such that, a pair of operating tabs 10, 20 are formed on a rear end portions of the upper and lower clamp bodies 1, 2 in a protruding manner, a spring is interposed between the pair of operating tabs 10, 20, the upper and lower clamp bodies 1, 2 are openable and closable about the lateral shaft 3 by the operating tabs 10, 20, and distal end portions of the upper and lower clamp bodies 1, 2 are constantly biased in a closing direction.
Further, the upper clamp body 1 is formed in an upward semi-circular shape, and a space portion for avoiding a dish edge portion 11 is formed. That is, the space portion 11 having the semi-circular shape is formed.
Such a space portion 11 is provided for preventing upwardly warped portion of the peripheral edge portion P of the dish from interfering with the upper clamp body 1 when the peripheral edge portion P of the dish is clamped by the upper and lower clamp bodies 1, 2 (see
Accordingly, the space portion 11 may be formed into any shape without any trouble provided that the shape can avoid such an interference. In the present invention, the space portion 11 having a semi-circular shape is adopted as an example.
As illustrated in
Accordingly, the swinging restricting lug 12 can take any shape without any trouble provided that the swinging restricting lug 12 can restrict the swinging of the scooping-up and receiving body structure S. In the present invention, the swinging restricting lug 12 having substantially rectangular disk shape is adopted as an example.
As illustrated in
The scooping-up plate 4 is biased downward by pressing, and is formed of a curved surface dish having a predetermined width, that is, a width effective for scooping up a small amount of remaining food by a spoon C or the like. The structure for generating downwardly pressing biasing of the scooping-up plate 4 is formed of a spring that biases the distal end edge portion 13 in a downward direction biasing the operating tab 10 having a semi-circular shape of the upper clamp body 1 upward.
That is, as illustrated in
Further, the lower clamp body 2 is formed of a resilient material so as to follow the outer side surface of the peripheral edge portion P of the dish as much as possible. Accordingly, when the peripheral edge portion P of the dish is clamped by the upper and lower clamp bodies 1, 2, the upper and lower clamp bodies 1,2 can clamp the dish of any shape with certainty by following the outer side surfaces of the peripheral edge portion P of the dish as much as possible.
The present invention is not limited to above-mentioned embodiments. That is, the present invention includes the configuration where the respective constitutional elements disclosed in the above-mentioned embodiment are exchanged from each other or are combined or the combination is changed, the configuration where the respective constitutional elements in the known invention and the embodiment described above can be replaced with each other or the combination is changed, and the like. Further, the technical scope of the present invention is not limited to the embodiment described above, and includes matters described in claims and equivalents of these matters.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2023-073942 | Apr 2023 | JP | national |
