Flexible garment with overlying front and reat pockets
A fabric garment has a front pocket configured to receive, releasably retain and protectively enclose a small, generally rectangular electronic device while providing operational access to a front face of the device, and has a closable rear pocket just behind the front pocket configured to receive, releasably retain and concurrently protectively enclose contents including at least a credit card, a latch key, and a photo identification card. The garment also includes an integrally formed portion defining an opening configured to permit a thumb of a wearer of the garment to extend therethrough. An elastic strap for encircling a limb of the wearer to support the garment preferably extends movably through a passage defined by a rear part of the garment.
This utility application is a continuation-in-part of each of the following two pending applications:
1) Utility application Ser. No. 12/584,292 filed Sep. 1, 2009 by Lawrence M. Baum and Geoffrey S. Gardner (Docket No. 6-406) which claimed the benefit of the filing date of U.S. Provisional Application Ser. No. 61/093,525 filed Sep. 2, 2008 by Lawrence M. Baum and Geoffrey S. Gardner (Docket No. 6-405); and,
2) Design application Ser. No. 29/421,455 filed Jul. 30, 2012 by Lawrence M. Baum and Geoffrey S. Gardner (Docket No. 6-409) which was a division of Design application Ser. No. 29/370,825 filed Sep. 10, 2010 by Lawrence M. Baum and Geoffrey S. Gardner (Docket No. 6-408) issued Sep. 11, 2012 as Design Patent D-677,172, which was filed as a continuation-in-part of each of the following two applications:
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- A) Utility application Ser. No. 12/584,292 filed Sep. 1, 2009 (Docket No. 6-406) as identified above; and,
- B) Design application Ser. No. 29/316,223 filed Sep. 1, 2009 (Docket No. 6-407) which issued Nov. 29, 2011 as Patent D-649,718.
Incorporated herein by reference are disclosures of all of the applications and patents identified above.
BACKGROUNDThe present invention addresses a long-standing need experienced by persons engaged in physical activities for a flexible garment well suited to protectively carry a small personal electronic device at various locations on the hands and arms where the device is convenient to observe and operate without any need to pause, break stride or otherwise interrupt ongoing physical activities.
Although specialized garments are known and have been proposed that are intended to support water bottles, exercise weights, towels and a variety of other convenient items on various parts of a wearer's body, little heed has been paid to the importance of providing flexible fabric garments specifically designed to support small, generally rectangular, electronic devices for operation at locations on the hands and arms of those engaged in exercise—until the applicants named herein began offering such flexible garments during the years 2008 and 2009.
Nor has much attention been devoted to the desirability of incorporating into such specialized flexible fabric garments an “accessories pocket” giving the garment a capability for runners and others who are actively engaged in exercise to carry with them such basic essentials as a photo identification card, a credit card, a medical alert notice, a latch key and/or the like.
SUMMARYIn accordance with one preferred practice of the invention, a flexible fabric garment is provided that is well suited to securely, protectively and operationally support a small, generally rectangular electronic device not only on the hands, but also on the arms, and even on the legs of a person who is actively engaged in exercise.
In accordance with one preferred practice of the present invention, a specialized flexible fabric garment is provided with overlying front and rear pockets, with the front pocket being well suited to receive, enclose and operationally support a small, generally rectangular electronic device, and with the rear pocket being configured to contain and provide easy access to such present-day essentials as a photo identification card, a credit card, a medical alert notice, a latch key and/or the like
In accordance with some embodiments of the invention, a reach of fabric that extends about selected perimetrical portions of the rear pocket carries a hook-and-loop fastener providing ready access to contents of the rear pocket.
In accordance with a preferred practice of the present invention, a specialized flexible garment of the general type described above has an elongate elastic strap that extends movably through a passage defined on a rear part of the garment, giving the garment a capability to be positioned at a variety of locations on the arms and hands of a wearer.
In accordance with some embodiments of the invention, a flexible, transparent window operationally overlies a front surface of an electronic device carried by the flexible fabric garment, with the transparent window having portions that easily can be depressed and gently deformed as may be needed to permit the electronic device to be operated just as if there were no flexible, transparent window overlying the front surface of the electronic device.
More particularly, in accordance with some embodiments of the invention, a fingerless flexible fabric garment defines overlying front and rear, generally rectangular pockets, with the front pocket being configured to receive, releasably retain and protectively enclose a small, generally rectangular electronic device while providing operational access to a front face of the device, and with the rear pocket being configured to receive, releasably retain and concurrently protectively enclose contents including at least one of a credit card, a latch key, a photo identification card and/or the like.
Some embodiments of the garment also preferably include both an integrally formed fabric portion that defines an opening permitting a wearer's thumb to extend comfortably therethrough, and with a separate elastic support strap being provided that extends through a passage defined at the rear of the garment.
These and other features, and a fuller understanding of the invention may be had by referring to the following description and claims, taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, wherein:
To describe a preferred embodiment of the invention in an orderly manner, reference is first made herein to
Although the flexible fabric garments disclosed herein are designed to be worn primarily on the left hands of persons engaged in exercise, it will be understood that garments of mirror-image configuration designed to be worn primarily on the right hands are entirely within the scope and spirit of the claimed invention.
Yet another possible embodiment well within the spirit and scope of the invention provides a garment that has dual, symmetrically positioned, thumb-receiving openings that enable the garment to be worn interchangeably on either of the left and right hands. Such a flexible fabric garment is the subject of a design application being filed concurrently herewith by the inventors named herein (Atty's Docket No. 6-802), the disclosure of which is incorporated herein by reference.
The Embodiments Shown in FIGS. 1-6Referring initially to
Referring still to
Also shown in
If desired, portions of the specialized garments described herein may also be formed at least in part from leather or other durable materials that are flexible to wrap about the hand but are not especially resilient, in which case, one or more fasteners such as a buckle or what is known as hook-and-loop type fasteners such as are sold under the registered trademark Velcro may be employed to permit ease of installation of the garment 150 on the hand 50 of a wearer.
Referring still to
At opposite ends of the complexly curved line 171, the top of the garment 150 joins with the lines 151, 152 (designating the front and the rear of the garment 150, respectively) at points indicated by the numerals 181, 191, respectively. At opposite ends of the more simply curved line 172, the bottom of the garment 150 also joins with the lines 151, 152 at points designated by the numerals 182, 192, respectively.
At the top of the garment 150, a thumb-receiving opening 153 is provided by a portion of the flexible, resilient material 149 that surrounds the base region 60 of the thumb 59. Points labeled by the numerals 154, 155 designate opposite ends of a region where a part of the complexly curved line 171 is defined by the thumb-receiving opening 153.
Conceptually speaking, the garment 150 can be said to be defined by a relatively narrow band or “first reach” of flexible material 149 that extends along the imaginary axis 100 to snugly encircle the hand 50. Such a “narrow band” or “first reach” has a palm portion defined in
Depicted by broken lines in
What the garment 150 depicted in solid lines in
What the axis 100 crosses is a central region of the palm 52 of the hand 50 wherein a pocket formation (and an electronic device contained therein) can be at least partially protectively nestled or nested in the palm 52 of the hand 50, with other parts of the hand 50 helping to shield an electronic device carried by the garment 150 from unwanted contact with objects surrounding the wearer of the garment 150.
If the front pocket or front pocket formation that is selected contains a particular size and shape of electronic device that is larger than is depicted by one of the rectangles 210, 220 shown in
If a front pocket formation and electronic device contained therein project upwardly from the palm 52 of the hand 50 (as is depicted by the rectangles 210, 220 in
Referring to
As can best be seen in
Referring to
A front pocket or front pocket formation 400 (
Basic features of a fourth garment embodiment shown in
Referring to
Referring still to
Of importance is the fact that the fourth garment 450 shown in
Of course, the three features mentioned just above can be provided when forming such garments 150, 250 and 350 as are disclosed in
Economy is preferably obtained in manufacturing the fourth garment 450 by utilizing a single, main piece of fabric 460 that is complexly configured to define not only 1) the elongate strap-like formation 451 for encircling a hand of a wearer and 2) the formation 452 that is configured to encircle a thumb of a wearer, but also 3) a relatively wide band or loop of material 455 that encircles and defines the double-open-ended front pocket 500 (
Referring to
Best shown in
Referring to
Referring to
If, as is shown in
If, as shown in
To retain an electronic device 499 in the open-ended front pocket 500 (
As can best be seen in
Referring to
The rear pocket 600 (
The separately formed elongate, second strap-like member 700 extends movably through a passage 750 that is depicted by broken lines in FIG. 12)—which permits the elongate second strap-like member 700 to actually be removed from the garment 450 if a wearer of the garment so desires.
Although the invention has been described in its preferred form with a certain degree of particularity, it is understood that the present disclosure of the preferred form has been made only by way of example, and that numerous changes in the details of construction and the combination and arrangement of parts may be resorted to without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention. It is intended to protect whatever features of patentable novelty exist in the invention disclosed.
Claims
1. A flexible fabric garment having overlying front and rear, generally rectangular pocket portions; with the front pocket portion configured to receive, releasably retain and protectively enclose a generally rectangular electronic device, with the front pocket portion extending about a perimeter of the device when positioned therein without obstructing continuous operational access to a front face of the device; with the rear pocket portion located immediately behind the front pocket portion and configured to concurrently receive, releasably retain and protectively enclose contents including at least one of a conventional credit card, a latch key, one a driver's license and a photo identification card, with the rear pocket portion having a perimeter formation provided with a releasably closable fastener permitting the contents to be inserted thereinto and removed therefrom; with the garment including a first elongate strap portion configured to encircle a hand of a person wearing the garment to retain the garment on the hand; with the garment including a thumb-encircling portion defining an opening that permits a thumb of a person wearing the garment to extend there-through; and with the garment also including a second elongate strap portion configured to encircle and releasably enclose a limb of the person.
2. The garment of claim 1 wherein a single piece of flexible fabric defines the front pocket portion, the thumb-encircling portion, and the first elongate strap portion.
3. The garment of claim 1 wherein the second elongate strap portion is formed, at least in part, from elastically extensible fabric.
4. The garment of claim 3 additionally including a fabric-defined passage located behind the front pocket portion, and the elongate strap portion extends movably through the fabric-defined passage.
5. The garment of claim 3 wherein at least one of the first and second elongate strap portions carries a fastener.
6. The garment of claim 1 wherein the releasably closable fastener that permits the contents to be inserted into and removed from the rear pocket portion includes a hook and loop type releasable closure.
7. The garment of claim 6 wherein the releasably closable fastener extends along at least an openable perimeter region of the rear pocket portion.
8. The garment of claim 7 wherein the releasable closable fastening extends along a portion of one side of the rear pocket portion adjacent an end region of the rear pocket portion.
9. The garment of claim 1 wherein the front pocket portion has an open end region through which the electronic device can be inserted into and removed from the front pocket portion, and wherein a part of the thumb-encircling portion extends across the open end region to retain the electronic device within the front pocket portion when the garment is worn by the person.
10. A fingerless garment formed primarily from flexible fabric configured to define overlying front and rear, generally rectangular pocket portions; wherein the front pocket portion is configured to receive, releasably retain and protectively enclose a small, generally rectangular electronic device while providing continuous operational access to a front face of the device; wherein the rear pocket portion is situated behind the front pocket portion and is configured to receive, releasably retain and concurrently protectively enclose contents including at least one of a credit card, a latch key, and a photo identification card; and with the garment also including, an integrally formed portion defining an opening configured to permit a thumb of a wearer of the garment to extend therethrough.
11. The fingerless garment of claim 10 wherein the rear pocket portion has a perimeter formation defining a releasably closable fastening permitting the contents to be inserted thereinto and removed therefrom.
12. The fingerless garment of claim 10 having a reach of fabric extending between and separating the front and rear, generally rectangular pocket portions.
13. The garment of claim 10 wherein the front pocket portion has an open end region through which the electronic device can be inserted into and removed from the front pocket portion.
14. The fingerless garment of claim 10 additionally including an elongate strap portion configured to encircle and releasably enclose a selected one of a hand of the wearer and an arm of the wearer.
15. The garment of claim 14 with the elongate strap portion being formed, at least in part, from elastically extensible fabric.
16. The garment of claim 14 additionally including a fabric-defined passage located behind the front pocket portion, and the elongate strap portion extends movably through the fabric-defined passage.
17. The garment of claim 14 wherein the elongate strap portion has a buckle carried thereon.
18. The garment of claim 10 wherein the rear pocket portion is provided with a releasably closable fastening that permits the contents to be inserted into and removed from the rear pocket portion.
19. The garment of claim 18 wherein the releasably closable fastening extends across at least an end region of the rear pocket portion.
20. The garment of claim 19 wherein the releasable closable fastening extends along a portion of one side of the rear pocket portion adjacent the end region of the rear pocket portion.
Type: Application
Filed: May 9, 2013
Publication Date: Oct 1, 2015
Inventors: Larry M. Baum (Shaker Heights, OH), Geoffrey S. Gardner (Solon, OH)
Application Number: 13/986,514