Patent Grant
9516864
This application claims the benefit of Taiwan Patent Application Serial No. 103213424, filed Jul. 29, 2014, the subject matter of which is incorporated herein by reference.
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a structure of pet feces collection bag and, more particularly, to a pet feces collection bag by which the pet owners can immediately collect the feces of pets easily and conveniently when the pet owners are walking their pets outdoors, and can throw the bag with feces away in an outdoor garbage can without taking it home.
2. Description of the Prior Art
Having pets has gradually become a habit of the modern man for the past few years. The pet owner usually walks his/her pet outdoors; however, it has been become a problem that the pet owner has to clean the feces of pet after defecation. In some countries or region, the government authorities request or even make regulations or rules that the pet owner will be penalized if the pet owner did not clean feces up. Accordingly, the pet owner usually carries tissues or plastic bags for collecting the feces and thereafter brings used tissues or plastic bags back home. However, when it comes to the larger pets that usually have large amount of feces, the pet owners has to use a large amount of tissues for cleaning up the pet feces. Worse still, when the pets have mushy stool rather than stool shaped like a log, it will be more difficult to clean up. If the pet feces are not cleaned up properly, the fecal odor will be incurred due to the residual feces left on the ground while the soiling of the appearance of city can also be occurred. In addition, once the pet defecated on the grass ground, the mushy stool will be more difficult to be cleaned up and the residual feces left on the grass ground will attract flies and mosquitoes thereby inducing more problems about environmental sanitation.
Many companies are aware of the aforementioned issues and provide solutions for overcoming the problem due to the feces of the pets. For example, the Taiwan utility patent No. M400205 provides a device for collecting the pet feces including a handle, a flexible frame, a heat-sealing device, and a power source. The pet owner grasps the handle and uses the power source to provide the electricity to the heat-sealing device for sealing the bag opening contracted by the flexible frame whereby the pet feces can be collected within the bag and completely sealed. Nevertheless, the design of the aforesaid art is heavy such that it is inconvenient to carry it when the pet owners are walking their pets outdoors. Furthermore, an environmental issue may be induced because a battery is necessary to be used as the power source of the device while a structural complexity of the device will increase the manufacturing cost as well.
Accordingly, since the aforesaid conventional art still has drawbacks and inadequate parts, a research and design is needed thereby providing a novel product for collecting the pet feces.
In view of above, in order to improve the aforesaid problems according to the consideration of various fields such as different body size of pets, different outdoor environments, different types of pet feces, convenience of collection of the pet feces, and manufacturing cost, the present invention provides a structure of pet feces collection bag in response to the above-mentioned considerations such that the pet owner can immediately collect the feces of pets easily and conveniently and the collected feces can be thrown away in an outdoor garbage container without a further treatment.
The present invention provides a structure of pet feces collection bag comprising a carrier plate, a handle, and a bag. The handle is coupled to two corresponding positions respectively on a periphery of the carrier plate and is a frame structure extending outward from the two corresponding positions whereby the carrier plate is defined into a front part and a rear part having a first predetermined length and a second predetermined length along a specific direction, respectively, wherein the first predetermined length is smaller than the second predetermined length. The bag has an opening which is configured to have an opening connected to the handle portion and the rear part of the carrier plate along peripheries of the handle portion and the rear part of the carrier plate by a predetermined connection manner. The handle can be operated through a predetermined action which makes the handle to rotate about a specific axis so that the handle can be rotated around the carrier plate within 360 degrees whereby the opening of the bag can be selectively opened or closed in response to the predetermined action of the handle.
Based on the above-mentioned structure of the pet feces collection bag according to the present invention, in one embodiment, the carrier plate, the handle and the bag are formed as one unit by which the user merely pulls up the handle such that the carrier plate and the handle can rotate toward each other whereby the pet feces can fall into the bag from the carrier plate thereby completing operation of feces collection. One advantage of the structure of the present invention is simple and is easy for mass production, so the manufacturing cost is extremely low such that the single-use disposable is considerable for the user. In addition, since a size of the carrier plate can be designed according to the body size of the pets, the user can choose proper size of device for collecting the pet feces according to the size of their pets which is another advantage that make a great improvement of convenience when users carry and use the collection bag of the present invention.
The present invention will now be specified with reference to its preferred embodiment illustrated in the drawings, in which:
The invention disclosed herein is directed to a structure of pet feces collection bag. In the following description, numerous details corresponding to the aforesaid drawings are set forth in order to provide a thorough understanding of the present invention so that the present invention can be appreciated by one skilled in the art, wherein like numerals refer to the same or the like parts throughout.
Please refer to
The handle portion 11 is coupled to two specific positions respectively located at two corresponding sides of a periphery of the carrier plate 10. The handle portion 11 is formed as a frame structure and extends outward from the two corresponding sides of the carrier plate 10. The carrier plate 10 has a thickness so that when the feces are collected on the carrier plate 10, the carrier plate 10 has sufficient strength for supporting the weight of feces without large deformation. It is noted that there has no specific limitation on the thickness of the carrier plate 10, and the thickness of the carrier plate 10 can be determined according to material selected to form the carrier plate.
Meanwhile, it is capable of using cheaper paper material adapted in the packaging box field, such as corrugated paper with different layer design, waterproof kraft paper, and non-waterproof kraft paper, or using plastic or green material. In addition, in the present embodiment, the shape of the carrier plate 10 is a near-circular shape. It is noted that, the shape of the carrier plate 10 is not limited to the near-circular shape. For example, in alternative embodiment, the shape of the carrier plate can be, but is not limited to, an elliptical shape, a rectangular shape, a polygonal shape, or a trapezoidal shape. In one embodiment, the carrier plate 10 and the handle portion 11 can be formed as one-piece unit. Alternatively, the carrier plate 10 and the handle portion 11 can be formed as one-piece unit as well as made of the same material.
The bag 20 is an object with one opening which is coupled to the handle portion 11 along a periphery of the handle portion 11 and coupled to the carrier plate 10 along a periphery of a rear part of the carrier plate 10 through a predetermined connection manner. The bag 20 can be a conventional plastic bag, which is made by a material selecting from a group consisting of polyethylene (PE), high density polyethylene (HDPE), low density polyethylene (LDPE), linear low density polyethylene (LLDPE) that is usually applied in plastic wrap, polypropylene (PP), polyvinyl chloride (PVC), ethylene vinyl acetate, (EVA), a mixture of PE and EVA, composition of PE/PP, composition of PE/EVA, composition of PE/PVC, composition of PE/Nylon, composition of PE/PET (polyethylene terephthalate), and composition of PP/PP. Alternatively, the bag 20 can also be a reusable bag. The material for forming the reusable bag can be, but is not limited to, a non-woven fabric, a biodegradable plastic, a photo-degradable plastic, or a chemically degradable plastic. It is noted that the material for making the bag 20 is not limited to the aforesaid materials and it can be determined according to the actual need.
According to the aforesaid description, the predetermined connection manner can be, but is not limited to, a sticking connection, a tying connection, a clip connection, a tying connection, and a nail connection. The sticking connection, for example, can be a way by using hot glue for sticking the rim of the opening of the bag 20 to the handle portion 11 and the rear part of the carrier plate 10. Alternatively, when it comes to a clip connection, the rim of the opening of the bag is clipped to the periphery of the carrier plate 10 and the periphery of the handle portion 11 through clips. In an alternative embodiment, a tying connection can be a way that a plurality of holes are formed along the rim of the opening of the bag whereby a wire is utilized to pass through the holes and tie the rim of the opening to the periphery of the carrier plate 10 and the periphery of the handle portion 11. Alternatively, the nail connection is a way to bind the bag 20, carrier plate 10 and handle portion 11 together by using nail elements, such as staples, to join the rim of the opening of the bag 20 to the periphery of the carrier plate 10 and the periphery of the handle portion 11.
Please refer to
Please refer to
According to the aforesaid description, the specific positions of the handle portion 11 can define the carrier plate 10 having different shape into a front part 101/301 and a rear part 102/302 wherein the front part 101/301 has a first predetermined length L1/L3 and the rear part 102/302 has a second predetermined length L2/L4 along a specific direction that is an axial direction perpendicular to an virtual line formed by connecting two bottom ends of the handle portion 11 coupled to the carrier plate 10/30. In the present embodiment, the first predetermined length L1/L3 is smaller than the second predetermined length L2/L4.
Since the first predetermined length L1/L3 is smaller than the second predetermined length L2/L4, a gravity center 103/303 of the carrier plate 10/30 is located at the area of the rear part 102. Meanwhile, the distance between the gravity center and two bottom ends are equal to or substantially the same as each other. The location of the gravity center is depending on the shape of the carrier plate 10 as well as the area defined by the front part 101 and the rear part 102, which is not limited to the aforesaid embodiment that the area of the front part 101 is smaller than the area of the rear part 102; therefore, the area is varied according to the shape of the carrier plate 10. In addition, the carrier plates 10/30 in the aforesaid embodiments are uniformly formed by a single material and the carrier plate 10/30 having even thickness so as to allow the user to arrange the collection bag at a position where the two bottom ends of the handle portion 11 are corresponding to the pet's rear legs thereby allowing the feces smoothly falling on the rear part 102/302 of the carrier plate 10/30 when the pets are defecating.
According to the aforesaid description, two corresponding sides on the periphery of the front part 101/301 define a predetermined width W1/W2, which is smaller than a distance between the inner sides of the pet's rear legs. It is noted that the predetermined width W1/W2 is varied with the body size of the pets. For example, if the pet is dog, the predetermined width W1/W2 will be ranged from 10 cm-50 cm. In addition, two corresponding sides of the periphery of the front part 101/301 are respectively formed with a recess or a concave profile so that when the collection bag is arranged between the rear legs of the pet, a free standing space is available for the pets thereby preventing the pets from stepping on the carrier plate 10/30.
Please refer to
In one alternative embodiment, an absorption plate 100 can be further arranged on a surface collecting the feces of the pets, wherein the absorption plate 100 can be made of a material selected from a group consisting of cotton material, wood pulp cellulose, polyester fiber, polypropylene, and a combination thereof. The absorption plate 100 is utilized to absorb the moisture contained in the mushy stool thereby preventing it from expanding outside the carrier plate 10 and contaminating the environment. It is noted that there has no specific limitation on a surface area and the absorption capacity of the absorption material, each of which is selected according to the actual needs. It is noted that the absorption plate 100 can be coupled to the carrier plate 10 by a predetermined connection manner, such as a sticking connection manner, a tying connection manner, a nail connection, a clip connection, or a combination thereof.
Please refer to
Although the invention has been described hereinabove with reference to specific embodiments, each embodiment is not limited to the illustrated drawing and it is applicable to combine between the aforesaid embodiments according to the actual needs. Therefore, it will not be limited to the disclosure of single embodiment described hereinabove.
Please refer to
When the pet is defecating, the user can arrange the collection bag of the present invention between the pet's rear legs whereby the front part 101/301 of the carrier plate 10 is arranged at the position under the body part of the pet so that the rear part 102/302 can collect the feces 90. If the pet moves during the defecation, the user can grip the grip lever 110 to control position of the carrier plate 10/30 so that the carrier plate 10/30 can be moved following the movement of the pet whereby the feces from the pet can fall smoothly onto the rear part 102/302 of the carrier plate 10/30. After that, the user operates the handle portion 11/31 or grips lever 110 or, alternatively, pulls up the wire rope, whereby the handle portion 11/31 exerts an action force on the carrier plate 10 for generating a torque thereby driving the carrier plate 10 to rotate about the specific axis along the specific axial direction so as to make the feces fall into the collection bag 20 and finish the clean treatment of the pet feces.
Since the weight of the pet feces is varied with the type of pets, the principle of the present invention is to make the handle portion 11/31 coupled to the carrier plate 10/30 at a specific positions thereby biasing the gravity center of the carrier plate 10/30 from the specific axis such that the torque for inducing the rotation can be generated by the weight of the carrier plate 10/30 or weight of carrier plate 10/30 and pet feces on the carrier plate when the handle portion 11/31 is pull up by an action force thereby driving the carrier plate 10/30 to rotate toward a predetermined direction 92, such as counterclockwise or clockwise direction, for example. On the other hand, since the amount of feces of dogs having larger body size will be more and heavier, the coupling part, e.g., point contact, between the handle portion 11/31 and carrier plate 10/30 will be the critical part to sustain the total weight of the collection bag when the carrier plate 10/30 is pulled up. Accordingly, measures for increasing the area of the coupling part between the handle portion 11/31 and carrier plate 10/30 is adapted to enhance the tensile strength of the coupling part, which are listed in the following:
In addition, the structure strength of the carrier plate 10/30 is relevant to whether or not the carrier plate 10/30 carrying the feces can rotate toward the predetermined direction thereby allowing the feces to fall into the bag 20. For example, when the carrier plate 10/30 is made of paper material, such as corrugated paper, it is necessary to consider the grain direction, i.e., the direction that most fibers lying. The grain direction is relevant to the flexibility of paper, curl of paper and anti-tear capability of paper. The grain direction of the carrier plate 10/30 is perpendicular to the virtual line formed by connecting two bottom ends of the handle portion 11 coupled to the carrier plate 10/30, i.e. parallel to the specific direction, so as to prevent a curl from being occurred due to the temperature, moisture, or weight bearing thereby preventing the feces from falling outside the carrier plate 10/30 due to the direction of the rotation that is inverse to the predetermined rotation direction, preventing the carrier plate 10/30 from being contracted and extended along the specific direction as well as improving the anti-tear capability of the coupling part between the carrier-plate 10/30 and the handle portion 11/31.
In addition, when the carrier plate is made of kraft paper either waterproof or non-waterproof, it is necessary to consider the basis weight (P). It is noted that the thickness of the kraft paper is related to the basis weight; therefore, if the basis weight of selected kraft paper is too low, the stiffness is insufficient thereby causing the kraft paper becoming soft whereas if the basis weight of the selected kraft paper is too high, the handle portion 11/31 can't move freely due to a large thickness of the kraft paper such that the weight of the pet feces on the carrier plate is insufficient to make the carrier plate 10/30 rotate toward the predetermined direction 92 so that the pet feces can't fall into the bag coupled to the carrier plate 10/30 smoothly. In addition, the selection of the basis weight (P) for making the carrier plate and handle portion is determined according to the size of the bag corresponding to the body size of the pet or dog. According to the above-mentioned conditions, in one embodiment, the basis weight (P) may be larger than 200 P. In one preferred embodiment, the basis weight is in a range from 250˜350 P.
Please refer to
In the embodiment shown in
The bag 20 shown in
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Please refer to
According to the aforesaid embodiments, the structure of the pet feces collection bag can be integrally formed as one-piece unit such that the carrier plate carrying the pet feces can rotate toward the grip lever through a pull-up action on the grip lever whereby the pet feces can fall smoothly from the carrier plate to the bag so as to finish the clean treatment of the pet feces. Since the structure of the pet feces collection bag is simple and the size of carrier plate can be designed according to the body size of the pets, the manufacturing cost is extremely low and is suitable for mass production. Meanwhile, the dimension of the collection bag can be varied in accordance with the body size of pets, and the collection bag of the present invention can be a disposable design that may provide alternative choice for users; therefore, the structure of the present invention provides a great advantage that the user can conveniently carry and use the collection bag for collecting the pet feces.
While the present invention has been particularly shown and described with reference to a preferred embodiment, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes in form and detail may be without departing from the spirit and scope of the present invention.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 103213424 U | Jul 2014 | TW | national |
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| Number | Date | Country |
|---|---|---|
| 10 2012 106 504 | Jan 2014 | DE |
| M400205 | Mar 2011 | TW |
| Number | Date | Country | |
|---|---|---|---|
| 20160029600 A1 | Feb 2016 | US |
