Patent Application
20250143521
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The disclosure relates to towels and more particularly pertains to a new towel for being worn around a user's body.
The prior art relates to towels made to fasten around a user's body. Some towels of the prior art include holes in the fabric of the towel to facilitate insertion of the user's arms or portions of the towel, which may then be tied or otherwise secured to wrap around the user's body. Other towels of the prior art include features such as elongate strands to facilitate tying the towel around the user and drawstrings. However, the prior art does not disclose a grommet having resiliently bendable flaps to securely constrict a corner of the towel in the grommet and maintain the towel around the user's body. Such a towel provides an alternative to the structure of the prior art towels and provides a simple means of fastening the towel which may be advantageous to some users.
An embodiment of the disclosure meets the needs presented above by generally comprising a flexible planar member with at least one corner. A grommet is coupled to and extends through the flexible planar member. The grommet defines a hole in the grommet and comprises a plurality of flaps which are radially arranged with respect to each other and extend inwardly into the hole. The grommet is positioned distally from a selected corner of the at least one corner of the flexible planar member, and the selected corner is insertable through the hole of the grommet. Each flap comprises a resiliently bendable material such that the flaps bend to accommodate the selected corner. Having bent to accommodate the selected corner, the flaps are biased to constrict the selected corner when the selected corner is inserted through the hole to secure the selected corner in the hole.
Another embodiment of the disclosure includes a method of wearing a towel around a body of a user. The method includes wrapping a top edge of a flexible planar member of the towel around the body, thereby forming a tubular shape with the flexible planar member that extends around the body. A first corner of the flexible planar member is inserted into a hole of a grommet of the towel, thereby cinching the flexible planar member around the body. A plurality of flaps of the grommet is used to secure the first corner of the flexible planar member in the hole. Each flap of the plurality of flaps comprises a resiliently bendable material such that the flaps constrict the first corner to secure the first corner in the hole.
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 grommet 30 is coupled to and extends through the flexible planar member 12. The grommet 30 is positioned adjacent to the second corner 28 and defines a hole 32 in the grommet 30. The grommet 30 comprises a plurality of flaps 34 which are radially arranged with respect to each other and extend inwardly into the hole 32. Each flap 34 comprises a resiliently bendable material such that the flaps 34 bend to accommodate the first corner 26 of the flexible planar member 12 in the hole 32. Having bent to accommodate the first corner 26, the flaps 34 are biased to constrict the first corner 26 when the first corner 26 is inserted through the hole 32 to secure the first corner 26 in the hole 32. The resiliently bendable material may comprise rubber, silicone, another polymer, or the like. The resiliently bendable material may also be frictionally enhanced via material properties or surface texture to facilitate gripping the first corner 26.
In other embodiments, the flexible planar member 12 may comprise other shapes than the rectangular shape. The grommet 30 of such embodiments may be positioned adjacent to the top edge 18 in such embodiments and distally from a corner of the flexible planar member 12 such that the flexible planar member 12 may be wrapped around the body 38 of the user 36 and the corner is securable in the grommet 30 to secure the flexible planar member 12 around the body 38. The towel 10 may be worn, for example, around the user's 36 waist or the user's 36 chest.
Another embodiment of the disclosure as illustrated by
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 10 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.
