None.
This invention relates generally to female condoms and applicator, and more specifically, a user friendly female condom and applicator that make female condoms more comfortable and easier to use.
Condoms provide many benefits, such as preventing sexually transmitted diseases (STDs). Getting STDs is a risk that people face when they engage in intimate relationships. Some STDs, such as HIV, could be deadly. HIV is a virus that causes AIDS (acquired immunodeficiency syndrome). It is one of the world's most serious health issues. Since its first report in 1981, today an estimated 35 million people in the world currently live with HIV and tens of millions have died of AIDS. Among the infected HIV patients, 52% are women. Young women are twice likely to become infected with HIV than their male counterparts. Other STDs include genital herpes, viral hepatitis, bacterial vaginitis, pelvic inflammatory disease, syphilis, and etc. Some STDs are deadly, others causes serious health issues and discomforts. Therefore, it is highly advisable to take all necessary precaution to prevent STDs. Wearing condoms is one of the most effective and low cost approaches.
In addition, condoms are useful to prevent unplanned pregnancies. Couples may want to have an intimate relationship while avoid having children due to various reasons. Male condoms or female condoms are one of the effective ways to enable such outcome.
Whether one's ultimate goal is AIDS prevention, avoiding other sexually transmitted deceases, or reducing probability of pregnancy, condom is an effective tool because it is low cost and easy to use without any need of special training. We are focusing on improving female condom due to its huge untapped market with great potential of wide adoption. Women traditionally have higher stakes after pregnancy and thus generally have keener interests in birth controls. By targeting the more receptive stakeholders within female population, our effort can generate more significant impact on increasing condom adoption.
However, female condom has not gained expected traction, partly due to the difficulty of putting it on, especially during the first few uses. Female condoms comprises of two rings at each end of a cylindrical flexible tube having one end open. One ring is intended to stay inside the woman's vagina and another to stay outside during intercourse. Both inside and outside rings have to be large enough in diameter such that the inside rings does not come off easily during sexual intercourse, while the outside ring keeps the condom from being pushed inside the vagina. For such type of female condoms, one has to first squeeze the inside ring into an oval shape and then push fingers deep inside the condom tube in order to fully secure the condom into the vagina area. Many women don't feel comfortable inserting their fingers into their own vagina, either due to culture reasons or physical inconvenience/discomfort. In addition, other problems with female condoms include 1) the female condoms are made from opaque material which stands out from the skin color which might make female or her partner uncomfortable; 2) the out ring of the female condom is too thick, too hard and is an obvious prominent object in the genitalia area which also make the female or her partner uncomfortable; 3) the exposed part of the female condom is not attached to the skin which occasionally could cause the penis inserting into the outside wall of the female condom and causing failure in sexual decease or pregnancy prevention. Therefore, it is desirable to come up with a mechanism which enables placement of female condom easily and comfortably, preferably in a manner that is not frowned upon culturally.
The following are four exemplary embodiments of a user friendly female condom and applicator device for the purpose of making it easier to apply and use female condoms. 1) The first design is named Sliding Tampon Female Condom which comprises of a tampon applicator-like structure or an outer tube made from a soft material capable of sliding back and forth easily on an inner tube/stick, placed insides a female condom. A portion of the Female Condom's inside ring, with or without a small portion of the Female Condom skin, are tucked inside the outer tube and then the device delivers the female condom into a woman's vagina comfortably without requiring her to insert her finger into her vagina. 2) The second design is called Female Condom Tampon Applicator which comprises of a tampon applicator or tampon applicator-like structure with the inside ring of a female condom largely or completely tucked inside its outer tube where a portion or all of the outside ring of the female condom is tucked inside the inner tube. Users can insert the device similar to a regular tampon and delivers the female condom, by pushing the inner tube against the inner ring of the female condom similarly as pushing a regular tampon, into the user's vagina comfortably without requiring her to insert her finger into her vagina. 3) The third design is named String Condoms where camouflage strings are attached to the outside ring of the female condom attaching them to the skin firmly but comfortably to prevent outer ring of the female condom being too thick or move around, thus reducing condom movement or noise level during sexual intercourse. 4) The forth design category consists of various combinations among the first three designs to make both the condom insertion process comfortable as well as reducing/eliminating issues during intercourse, and thus improving user experience during the entire condom usage process from beginning to end.
Several of our designs take advantage of the traditional female tampon structure and modify it for the purpose of delivering female condom. The first and second design is a creative approach by leveraging two existing proven designs. The third design simply adds non-apparent strings to the female condom to enable thinner outer ring of the female condom. Such incremental approach takes less time from proto-type to mass market production and is easier for female users to adopt due to their already familiarity with similar devices and their usage.
We believe that our approach is more likely to gain great success by improving on female condom, compared to approaches of modifying male condom. The main reason is that a female condom affects both parties' sensitivity/pleasure much less compared to a male condom. Therefore, young male will not mind using it if their partner is interested in using it. More importantly, greater than 50% of male population age 60 or older starts to experience occasional loss of erection during sexual intercourse. Therefore, they are not inclined to use male condom to make it harder to maintain erection. However, such older male populations likely don't want more children and thus will be more willing to use female condom if the condom doesn't affect their sexual ability. Therefore, if a design makes woman want to wear female condoms, it is bound to yield a significant uptake in protected sex.
In addition, women generally are more concerned about the consequences of sexual relationships, and thus are more willing to pay attention to the protection measures. Females are shown to generally exhibit the following characteristics: 1) Women are believed to pay more attention to details, easier to accept new subjects, willing to train, and proactive in learning; 2) Due to the impact of sexual relationship to women's own future and health, woman is particularly vocal about pregnancy prevention; 3) Female condom has more advantages than male condom because it has less impact on sensitivity.
The present invention advantageously fills the aforementioned deficiencies by providing an effective, comfortable, easy to use, and low cost device with no side effects to help prevent STDs.
In one particular embodiment of the present invention as shown in
We have developed a sample proto-type as show in
In another embodiment of the present invention, the device comprises tucking the entire female condom inside the soft balloon or tampon applicator-like structure to deliver the condom into vagina. Instead of just tucking the inside ring of the female condom into the balloon while the condom wall surrounds the balloon, the female condom inside ring with the surrounding condom skin is folded and bent into a slim long column shape with the outer ring of the condom with its ski folded and bent into a slim long column shape. The column is inserted into and encapsulated by the outer tube of a tampon application (or similar structure) (or the air or liquid balloon sac) largely or completely, with the outer ring largely or completely encapsulated by the inner tube of the tampon applicator (or similar structure). The tampon applicator (or like structure) is then placed in an orientation such that the inside ring of the condom would pop out first when the column's bottom is pushed outside the balloon.
In still another embodiment of the present invention, the female condom is attached to strings so that the outside ring of the condom does not dangle freely. The strings could be made from soft transparent or camouflage color such as skin color to make them less visible to the eye, yet comfortable to the skin. One can also combine this embodiments with the one or more of the previously mentioned embodiments.
It is therefore an object of the present invention to enable a female condom to be inserted easily and comfortably, while pleasant and convenient before, during, and after the condom usage for the female and her partner so that they want to adopt the usage of the female condom during their intimate sexual intercourse. The advantage of the present invention is that it is convenient and easy to use, low cost, and can be put on way ahead of the sexual intercourse. Compared with the female condoms sold on the market today, the device from the present invention is easier to put on, more comfortable during the sexual intercourse, and offers longer term benefits by enabling more female and male liking the usage of this device.
The present invention now will be described more fully hereinafter with reference to accompanying drawings, which are intended to be read in conjunction with both this summary, the detailed description and any preferred and/or particular embodiments specifically discussed or otherwise disclosed. This invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein; rather, these embodiments are provided by way of illustration only and so that this disclosure will be thorough, complete and will fully convey the full scope of the invention to those skilled in the art.
The invention may take physical form in certain parts and arrangement of parts, a preferred embodiment of which will be described in detail in this specification and illustrated in the accompanying drawings which form a part hereof and wherein:
The present invention is directed to a user friendly female condom that is low cost, easy to put on, comfortable to wear, convenient for the female user and her partner.
Referring now to the drawings wherein the showings are for purposes of illustrating a preferred embodiment of the invention only and not for purposes of limiting the same,
Some people are uncomfortable with the large and hard out ring of the female condom. In addition, its dangling outside the vagina makes the woman feel unattractive. Therefore, we have designed a bikini-like condom or condom with strings to improve on this aspect.
Another embodiment is a bikini-like condom to make the condom comfortable to wear and pleasant to look at by everyone. The condom can be worn anytime constantly. When the female needs to urinate, she only needs to open a small covering, which could be artistically designed, without removing the bikini-like condom.
When the female user needs to go urinate, she can simply adjust the thin strings so that the soft outside ring is pulled forward toward the belly button more to expose the urethra to urinate without removing the bikini-like condom.
While the present invention has been described above in terms of specific embodiments, it is to be understood that the invention is not limited to these disclosed embodiments. Many modifications and other embodiments of the invention will come to mind of those skilled in the art to which this invention pertains, and which are intended to be and are covered by both this disclosure and the appended claims. It is indeed intended that the scope of the invention should be determined by proper interpretation and construction of the appended claims and their legal equivalents, as understood by those of skill in the art relying upon the disclosure in this specification and the attached drawings.
The present application claims the benefit of U.S. Provisional Application No. 61/952,875, filed on Mar. 14, 2014 entitled “User Friendly Female Condom”, which is hereby incorporated by reference in its entirety.
Number | Name | Date | Kind |
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4805604 | Spery | Feb 1989 | A |
4840624 | Lee | Jun 1989 | A |
4867176 | Lash | Sep 1989 | A |
4945923 | Evans | Aug 1990 | A |
5433219 | Spery | Jul 1995 | A |
20040054317 | Lemay | Mar 2004 | A1 |
Number | Date | Country |
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2454945 | May 2009 | GB |
Number | Date | Country | |
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20150359661 A1 | Dec 2015 | US |
Number | Date | Country | |
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61952875 | Mar 2014 | US |