Patent Application
20210401554
In general, the invention relates to a dental floss which is produced in a fora of seamless circular string for general hygienic dental teeth flossing. Each dental floss is a smooth single circle without any knots.
When practicing a dental flossing to remove debris trapped between teeth or clean the gaps between teeth, there are basically two types of practical methods.
The first type is a combined dental floss string and a device that holds two ends of a dental floss string. Representative prior arts include U.S. Pat. No. 10,517,703, 10,206,765, 9,844,432. The common disadvantage of this type of dental flossing is that adding such a device will significantly increase the cost of dental floss products.
The second type is without the aid of a device when flossing, for example a certain length of string of dental floss with one end being tied on a finger on the left hand and the other end being tied on a finger on the right hand, however, it still needs a dispenser to store and cut the dental floss. The common disadvantage of this type of dental flossing is that both fingers suffer discomfort due to being tightly tied by several turns of the thin dental floss string.
Furthermore, there are two different forms of dental floss, one is a smooth string or strip which is the most popular as seen in our daily life, and another is a string with at least one knot. Obviously, adding knots to the dental floss will increase the manufacturing cost. Representative prior arts include United Patent Application Publication #2015/0122281, United Patent Application Publication #2019/0117353 and United Patent Application Publication #2019/0076224.
The embodiments as presented in this invention is related to an improved dental floss for hygienic cleaning with great simplicity and cost effectiveness. The dental floss disclosed in this invention is in a unique form of seamless circular string and smooth without any knots along its circumference.
A seamless circular dental floss is basically no waste of dental floss as contrast that a strip of non-circular dental floss has unusable portions at the two ends. In addition, a seamless circular dental floss does not need a dispenser to store and cut a dental floss strip, thus economically benefiting both the users and the manufacturers.
A further advantage of the present invention is to provide a dental floss package containing multiple sets of seamless and smooth circular floss with different diameters being convenient for a family use or for alternative habits in size.
The seamless circular dental floss may be produced by a number of methods including but not limiting to pressured heating, fusion heating, bonding using medical grade non-hardening adhesive containing PTFE, being mechanically sewed together, or be g mechanically pressured/sewed together. Practices and experiences demonstrate that a method of manually tying two ends of a dental floss strip to make a circular dental floss does not work well simply because almost all kinds of dental floss are very slippery or slick. The floss materials for the seamless circular dental floss as presented in this invention include but not limit to nylon, polymer, silk, Teflon and synthetic compounds.
The present invention is related to a seamless and smooth circular dental floss for hygienic dental teeth cleaning with the advantages of great simplicity and cost effectiveness. The smooth here means the dental floss is a continuously smooth circle without any knots along its circumference.
The unique form of seamless circular floss 10, 20 or 30 shown in
Furthermore, the seamless circular dental floss 10, 20 Or 30 does not need a dispenser to store and cut a dental floss strip, thus no need for making expensive tooling and molds to produce the dispensing device. In addition, the feature of smoothness with no knots along the circumference of the seamless circular floss 10, 20 or 30 further reduces the manufacturing cost.
Since there is no need for any device for the seamless and smooth circular dental floss as presented in this invention, such a great simplicity may conveniently provide a dental floss package containing three sets of seamless and smooth circular floss with three different but preferred diameters, such as 50 mm, 70 mm and 90 mm being convenient for a family use or for different habits in size.
There may be a number of choices for floss materials for the seamless circular dental floss as presented in this invention such as nylon, polymer, Teflon, any suitable synthetic compounds, etc. Once a floss material is determined, the seamless circular dental floss may be produced by a number of methods including but not limiting to pressured heating, fusion heating, bonding using medical grade non-hardening adhesive containing PTFE, being mechanically sewed together, or being mechanically pressured/sewed together.
Each of the patents and other documents identified herein are hereby incorporated in their entirety by reference herein only to the extent that the incorporated material does not conflict with existing definitions, statements, or other disclosure material set forth in this disclosure. As such, and to the extent necessary, the disclosure as set forth herein supersedes any conflicting material incorporated herein by reference. Any material, or portion thereof, that is said to be incorporated by reference herein, but which conflicts with existing definitions, statements, or other disclosure material set forth herein is only incorporated to the extent that no conflict arises between that incorporated material and the existing disclosure material.
Other embodiments of the present invention will be apparent to those skilled in the art from a consideration of the specification or a practice of the invention disclosed herein. It is intended that the specification and examples are illustrative only and are not intended to be limiting on the scope of the invention. The true scope and spirit of the present invention is indicated by the following claims.
