Urinal flush valve drink rest holder
This invention is simply a drink beverage coaster that is specifically meant to attach to the common urinal flush valve top cap. It attaches itself by little legs that come down from underneath the top coaster part that conform around the urinal flush valve top cap and hook to the underside lip of the top cap. When laying a bottle, can or glass on the chrome top cap or plumbing apparatus, a drink is prone to fall off on the floor because the surface is not large enough, flat enough and is too slippery to accommodate a beverage container. This invention snaps over the top cap allowing for easy removal for maintenance of the flush valve and may be put back on easily to accommodate those who have a beverage in hand at the urinal allowing for hands free operation of said bodily functions at the urinal without losing ones drink.
A device that allows you to rest your drink on the common urinal flush valve by attaching itself to the components of said urinal flush valve. This drink rest has a horizontal level surface on it which acts as a holder and or coaster or resting location to allow one to rest their drink on the urinal flush valve in bathrooms while they use the bathroom facility thus allowing for hands free operation of the urinal or toilet the flush valve is attached to. It is comprised of a hard resilient material that can be made to shape with apparatus that attaches itself to the urinal flush valve by way molding to the shape of certain sections of the urinal flush valve by way of anchors that wrap around sections of the urinal flush valve holding it to the flush valve in place firmly.
A urinal flush valve drink holder made from a hard resilient material that allows itself to be molded, shaped, or machined into shape thus allowing it to attach itself to a urinal flush valve while receiving a drink on the flat level surface. A hard resilient material such as plastic, wood, metal, carbon fiber, or any other resilient material.
The invention is simple, it is a flat level surface with a mounting apparatus underneath that attaches itself to the top cap of the urinal flush valve by way of anchors extending down from the top level surface conforming around the shape of the urinal flush valve top cap and having small anchors that grab the underside of the urinal flush valve's top cap.
The device could be plastic injection molded by making a mold and injecting hot porous plastic into the mold and cooling it to create a hard finished product. The invention could be plastic but not limited to plastic and could be made from other hard resilient materials that may be carved or machined out of wood or metals, by using the machining process whereby a (computer numeric controlled) CNC Machine lathe could manufacture one by shaping it on computer aided designing 3-D software program and a CNC machine lathe makes the item to specification based on the computer drawing input into the machining device.
A top surface of the device has a flat non porous surface that allows a drink to be rested on top. Simply snap the invention on top of a urinal flush valve top cap and rest your drink on top of the invention.
BACKGROUND OF INVENTIONThe invention pertains to drink coasters, drink rests, drink holders and devices invented to hold a drink in place while the user has hands free operation. When one enters a bathroom of a business, night club, bar, restaurant, stadium event or other establishment with a drink in hand, one must rest their drink somewhere on a urinal in order to free their hands in order to free “themselves” from their binding pants to go to the bathroom. When doing so one normally has to rest their drink on the urinal flush valve top cap, or lean the beverage against the top cap and the wall. This option has on many occasion turned out to be a bad place as top cap is not suited wide enough with a flat enough surface to allow for a drink to be safely rested and being chrome plated turns out to be too slippery and the drink has a tendency to fall on the floor. Other areas on the urinal or toilet are less sanitary and one would not want to rest their drink.
When going to the bathroom it is somewhat cumbersome to hold one's self while relieving one's self while holding a drink. Furthermore, in night clubs and bars or stadium events, under heavy influence of alcohol, it becomes even more difficult to hold one's self while holding one's drink while doing your best not to drench your pants, not to mention if the drink falls off the top cap it could splash on your pants thus making it appear that you had a major accident in the bathroom much to your embarrassment as well as destroying a perfectly good beer that would either crack or land in a very unsanitary place. This device allows you to rest your drink in a fashion that is sanitary, safe from falling off and allow you to do your business in the bathroom while your drink would rest stationary on the horizontal surface of the invention.
PRIOR ARTAs to prior art, no prior art is mentioned. I have never seen such a device as the one I have invented. I have seen the typical drink coaster like anyone has. Simple in design, a flat surface made of plastic, metal or wood, to put under a drink that rests on a flat surface such as a table. I have seen no prior art to be compared with my invention in retrospect as to fasten to a Urinal Flush Valve and after making my own patent search online I find there is no such device.
DRAWING OUTLINE AND DESCRIPTION
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- 1) Top Coaster with 1a) beveled upaward lip 2) Curved “Ears” 3) Anchors on ear ends that hold unit down. To the right, shows top coaster segment with 1a) Lip and side view cross section view below it. Below left shows 45 degree top view of the Ears segment of the unit separate and it's Anchors.
A simple Beverage Rest Holder consisting of a flat surface to which a drink rests, that has apparatus underneath that attaches itself to a Urinal Flush Valve. A simple Beverage Rest Holder consisting of a flat surface to which a drink rests, and ears that come down from the underside of said top flat surface that have pointed angled hooks at the bottom ends pointing inward like anchors that attach themselves to the underside of the common Urinal Flush Valve Top Cap.
The invention could also be designed as a sleeve like device made to fit over the same outside shape and size of a Automatic Flush Valve Top Cap that simple slides over the existing sleeve with the same level top surface which works with Autoflush Urinal Flush Valves.
This also may be a simple flat tray that rests on top of the Urinal Flush Valve Top Cap or other areas of said flush valves with other types of permanent attachments that allow the device to be fastened to the Urinal Flush Valve via the other parts of the Urinal Flush Valve, whether Automatic or Manual flush designs.
A Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder that attaches itself to the common Urinal Flush Valve (
A Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder that attaches itself to the common Urinal Flush Valve Top Cap that allows the user to rest their beverage on the holder allowing for hands free from any beverage while one uses the Urinal or Toilet that the Flush Valve is attached to.
This new idea was invented for the countless times I laid my beer in a night club wedged up against the wall and on the top of the Urinal Flush Valve, and while using the urinal with my hands preoccupied, watched my beer vibrate off the flush valve onto the floor in the bathroom. To my horror the beer would either break or land in some unfavorable wet area and thus I'd have to trash the beer. After spending most of my life out of work, the loss of a three dollar beer over and over due to the same place I rested my beer while I went to the bathroom made me think of the idea to avoid spending more money on another beer to replace it, which was money that I didn't have. After all, at three bucks a pop plus tip, when you are out of work, a beer is a terrible thing to waste.
This invention most likely will be a plastic injection molded drink coaster with an apparatus that attaches itself to the common standard Urinal Flush Valve Top Cap. (See
See
There are also Automatic Flush Valve Tops that work under a slightly different shaped Top Cap, see
The standard Urinal Flush Valve, see
The top of the Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder is horizontal and circular in shape like the typical drink coaster, but it is not limited to a round shape. Other cosmetic shapes that sit horizontally flat such as a stars, corporate logos that lend themselves to fit, rectangles, stars or squares, or any other flat shape that would allow you to rest your drink on it are possible, See
The flat coaster has two pieces of plastic under it that come downward from it vertically which I continue to refer to as “EARS”, see (#2) of
See
There are two “Ears” see
There are two ears mentioned; however, this is not limited to two in design. A minimum of two ears are required to hold the Beverage Rest Holder down to the Top Cap; however, there could be three ears or four in smaller size widths horizontally at opposite sides of the holder as seen in
Due to the Beverage Rest Holders application it will be in a high volume visibility area thus it could be used for Advertising purposes as well. Company logos and messages could be imprinted on the holder, and company logos that lend themselves to this type of idea such as the Apple Computer logo seen in
The Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder, as mentioned earlier, could be made from other materials other than plastic, such as kevlar, metal alloys like steel, glass or glass products like fiberglass, woods or any other resilient material that would be efficient. For this example plastic will be used.
The common urinal flush valve you see on toilets and wall mounted urinals has a top cap that is most paramount in my invention. After exploring other areas where a coaster could be mounted with the same type of mounting apparatus I felt the Top Cap was the best suited for the idea behind the invention. This mounting area is not limited to the invention. Other designs could be made such as a flat platter that would rest via two clamps around the piping on the Urinal Flush Valve. One could easily be made to clamp around the round tubes on the left and right sides of the flush valve, see
The design is not limited in it's function either. Other design ideas of different styles of Beverage Rest Holders that attach to a Urinal Flush Valve that would have any flat horizontal surface that could be used for holding a beverage could have other ideas as part of the invention to go along with it for instance a Beverage Rest Holder designed with a cigarette holder or a place to hold match books as seen in
See
Seeing both caps are the same other than the look, the Beverage Rest Holder will fit both types of styles easily without any change in manufacturing. In other words, one size will fit all!
There are many types of Urinal Flush Valves made by other companies. The most common in the United States is the one made by SLOAN. The Beverage Rest Holder could be simply adapted in size if need be to fit the top cap of other brands but for sake of argument and as an example we will deal with the Sloan variety shown in
There is another variety of top cap known as the AUTOMATIC Urinal Flush Valve. These units are the same exact type units only the top section where the top cap mounts is an Automatic Flushing device located under a black colored plastic cap, see
For drainage purposes, holes could be drilled into the top surface of the Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder as seen in
A completely new Top Cap Design could be manufactured with a flat top surface that would allow for a drink to be held by incorporating a coaster like design into the new design Top Cap as seen in
Furthermore, other devices could be made to secure the invention further by attaching to other areas of the Urinal or Toilet surface itself as in
Alternative Urinal Beverage Rest Holder designs could be made that attach directly to the Toilet or Urinal via suction cups as well as seen in
Lastly, advertising devices used like small billboards or advertising devices that would attach themselves to the Urinal Flush Valve Top Cap that are stationary or could be equipped with electric eyes that would sense movement of a person in front of the urinal that would trigger a recorded message or movement of a advertisement revolving or moving back and forth to get the persons attention could use the same clamping apparatus to attach to the Urinal Flush Valve to allow for advertising while one uses the urinal as seen in
Claims
1. I claim a Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder, made of a non-porous hard resilient material, that attaches itself to the common Urinal Flush Valve that allows the user to rest their beverage on the holder allowing for hands free from any beverage while one uses the Urinal or Toilet that the Flush Valve is attached to.
2. The subject matter in claim (1) where in a Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder is made from a non-porous hard resilient material such as plastic but not limited to plastic and may include any other non-porous hard resilient material known to man that may be manufactured into shape such as metals like steel, aluminum titanium, copper, brass and other metal based alloys, woods such as birch, oak, cedar, pine and other types of woods, glass and glass like materials such as lexan, lucite, and fiberglass, carbon fibers, rubber, other types of plastics and other hard resilient materials known to man that are moldable or shapeable by example.
3. The subject matter in claim (1) where in a Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder, attaches to the common Urinal Flush Valve Top Cap and other components of the common Urinal Flush Valve.
4. The subject matter in claim (1, 2 and 3) where in a Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder attaches via “Ears” attached to underside of the Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder that come downward at which bottom edges have pointed anchors angled inward which grab the underside of the Urinal Flush Valve Top Cap thus holding it in place.
5. The subject matter in claim (1) where in a Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder attaches via clamps attached to the underside of the Urinal Flush Valve Drink Beverage Rest Holder which clamp around other areas of said Urinal Flush Valve thus holding it in place.
6. The subject matter in claims (1) where in a Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder attaches via a molded sleeve attached to the underside of the Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder that is molded to the outer shape of, and slides down and over, an Automatic Urinal Flush Valve Automatic Flushing Top thus holding it into place.
7. The subject matter in claim (1) where as a completely new Replacement Urinal Top Valve Flush Cap design could be manufactured to have a coaster top built into said top cap and threaded from the inside to fit over the old Urinal Flush Valve thus eliminated the use of my invention.
8. The subject matter in claim (1) where in another useful apparatus could be mounted or manufacture into the Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder invention design such as a cigarette holder, ash tray, or place to put match books could be built in or attached to the invention to give more use to the original invention's idea and design.
9. The subject matter in claim (1) where in many shapes of Urinal Flush Valve Drink Rest top flat drink resting surface could be manufactured to resemble corporation logos for corporate identity advertising as part of the inventions design.
10. The subject matter in claim (1) where in the invention could be imprinted with advertising for business and maximum exposure of corporate identities.
11. The subject matter in claims (1) where in a non-stick surface, such as cork or rubber, could be adhered to the top flat surface of the invention to make it non-slip.
12. The subject matter in claim (1 with the exception of claim 7) where in drainage holes or channels could be added to the top horizontal surface of the Urinal Flush Valve Beverage Rest Holder to allow for drainage of any liquid that might find it's way on top of the invention.
13. The subject matter in claim (1) where in a beverage holder consisting of elements mentioned in previous claims that uses the urinal or toilet surface as a brace in combination with the urinal flush valve that may hang from or on to the Urinal Flush Valve consisting of a sufficient flat horizontal surface area that is suitable to hold a beverage the size of a beer bottle, high ball glass or larger beverage.
14. The subject matter in claim (1) where in a urinal beverage holder consisting of a sufficient horizontal surface area large enough to accommodate a beverage that attaches via suction cups to the urinal or toilet.
Type: Application
Filed: Jan 3, 2005
Publication Date: Jul 6, 2006
Inventor: Shawn Kelley (Ellicott City, MD)
Application Number: 11/028,116
International Classification: E03D 13/00 (20060101); A47K 1/00 (20060101); E03C 1/00 (20060101);