GARMENT WITH TWO WAY POCKETS

Abstract

A garment such as a jacket includes a front provided with one or more pockets, each pocket having an inner and an outer opening so that a user can get access to the interior space of a pocket through either of said openings. In one embodiment a panel is provided to hide the pockets, with an opening providing access to the external openings of the pockets. Closure elements, such as zippers, hoop-and-loop strips or buttons are used as closure means.

Description

RELATED APPLICATIONS

None

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

A. Field of Invention

This application pertains to an apparel, preferably a jacket, that has one or more pockets, with at least one pocket being accessible from both the inside and the outside.

B. Description of the Prior Art

Garments, especially garments worn by men, such as sports jackets or suit jackets are normally provided with a plurality of pockets. Less formal jackets, including wind breakers, winter jackets, ski jackets and various other jackets used during sports activities are also provided with several pockets. Jackets worn by travelers on a trip are particularly popular because it permits the wearers to take many things with them, things that are not normally worn, such as passports, money, emergency medicine, tools, etc.

These pockets improve the esthetic appearance of the garments and provide a convenient way of storing various items, such as wallets, cell phones and other smart portable devices, paper money, change, documents such as letters, passports and other legal documents, pens and other writing instruments and so on. In fact there is a whole industry devoted to designing and manufacturing items having various degrees of usefulness that can carried in their jacket pockets.

Jackets, whether more or less formal, can have any number of internal as well as external pockets, and these can have various sizes, shapes, orientation and structure depending on the construction, weight and material of the jacket itself, as well as the purpose of the jacket, and other considerations. For example, some of the pockets on a jacket may be a general purpose and can be used to store a variety of objects of different sizes, shapes, weights, and so on. Other pockets are sized, shaped and oriented for storing particular article, such as a passport, wallet, cell phone, camera, etc.

The provision of one or more pockets on a garment provide some unique, often difficult challenges to a designer and impose some difficult problems that need to be solved to insure that the esthetic look of a garment is not compromised either by the pockets, their structure or content. In some instances, designers have solved some of these problems by providing blank pockets using a sewing or flap to make it look like the jacket had some pockets, when in fact, it did not.

In any event, each pocket is typically formed of two panels (that may or may not form a part of the inner or outer panel of the garment) partially sewn together. Thus, inherently each pocket requires additional materials, increases the time and effort spent by workers to make and assemble the pocket and increases the overall weight of the jacket. Pockets provide several other disadvantages and inconveniences. If a garment has too many pockets, a user can get confused as to which pocket contains what. In some situations, a wearer may want access to a particular pocket from the outside while other time a garment's pocket needs to be accessible from the inside while at other times, the content of a pocket need to be acceptable from the outside.

Finally, some of the pockets, especially externally accessible pockets are difficult to protect from pickpockets and other people trying to obtain unauthorized access to the pocket. In other words, at least some of the pockets represent a serious security problem to its wearer.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

The present invention provides a garment, and more particularly a jacket with several pockets, at least some of which are provided with two openings, one from the inside, and the other from the outside of the garment, In one particular embodiment, the pockets are provided with several openings that open from different directions, each direction being selected to ease access by a wearer,

In one embodiment, a security cover is provided that hides one or more pockets so they are no longer visible from the outside.

DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 shows a partial front devotional view of a jacket with several pockets and a security cover constructed in accordance with the present invention;

FIG. 2 shows a top sectional view of a portion of the jacket of FIG. 1;

FIG. 3 shows a front elevational view of the jacket of FIG. 1 with a portion of the front panel removed to show the underlying pockets;

FIG. 4 shows a partial front elevational view of the jacket of FIGS. 2 and 3 with the security opened to allow access to the pockets thereunder;

FIG. 5 shows a top sectional view of a portion of the jacket of FIG. 4 similar to FIG. 2;

FIG. 6 shows a partial front elevational view of an alternate embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 7 shows a partial elevational view of a pocket of the embodiment of FIG. 6;

FIG. 8 shows an elevational view of the jacket of FIGS. 6 and 7 looking out from the inside thereof;

FIG. 9 shows a partial elevational view of a third embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 10 shows a partial top cross-sectional view of the pocket in the jacket of FIG. 9; and

FIG. 11 shows a partial elevational view of the jacket looking out from the inside thereof.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION

Referring now to the Figures, jacket 10 constructed in accordance with this invention includes a jacket front 12, extending to a shoulder 14 and having an arm 16. The jacket front 12 includes at least a front panel 20 an inner liner 22. Jacket 10 is provided with a plurality of inner pockets 24, 26, 28. Pocket 26 is defined between at least two walls, an outer wall 30 and an inner wall 32. Access to the space within the pocket 26 is provided by a first or outer opening 34 and, a second or inner opening 36. These openings can be vertical open slits, or may be provided with respective pocket closure members such as a respective zipper, one or more buttons, hook-and-loop type closures, etc. Moreover, the pocket openings 34, 36 need not be identical. For example, the pocket opening 34 may be an open slit while pocket opening 36 may be selectively opened or closed by a zipper, button, hook-and-loop strip, etc. Moreover, while in the drawings, the openings 34, 36 are shown as extending along the vertical lateral walls of the pocket 26, the openings may also be somewhat shorter to insure that as the respective openings are opened, the content of the pocket 26 do not fall out. It should be noted that the inner pocket opening 36 is not juxtaposed with respect to opening 34. In one embodiment, it is preferably vertical to allow a user to reach into the pocket 26 with his hand and fingers moving laterally through the jacket opening (not shown). This arrangement and pocket structure is much more natural and easy for the user (or wearer) than if the opening 36 would be horizontal.

Pockets 24, 28 may have different sizes but preferably have the same structure as pocket 26 described above.

Pockets 24, 26, 28 are not directly accessible or even visible because they are kept hidden by the front panel 20. However a generally vertical opening 38 is provided in the front panel 20. Again, this opening 38 can be an open slit or can be closed by a suitable closing element, such as a zipper 40, or other similar elements, such as one or more buttons, hook-and-loop strips etc.

Initially, as a person dons and wears the jacket 10, vertical opening 38 is closed and its pockets are closed from both sides. When the user wants to access one of its pockets, for example, pocket 26, he first opens the opening 38 (for example, by opening zipper 40). He then moves the front panel 20 from the jacket 10 in direction A as shown in Fig. A thereby gaining access to the inner pockets 24, 26 or 28. He then opens one of the pockets, e.g., pocket 26 by opening is opening 34 (by opening zipper 34A—FIG. 5, if there is one). He can now reach through the opening 38 and front opening 34 of pocket 26 into the inner space of pocket 26 and either insert articles into the pocket or retrieve articles from the pocket 26. Importantly, opening 38 extends a long a substantial length of the jacket 10, and especially by about 1″ or more above opening 24A of pocket 24 and about 1″ or more below the opening 28A of pocket 28 in order to insure that the user can push his left hand easily into these openings 24A, 28A and access the interior space of the respective pockets.

Alternatively, the user can open the jacket 10, reach into the jacket with his right hand, open the respective closing member for the respective inner pocket opening, such as 36, and deposit or retrieve article out of, or into the pocket 26. Again, this action is facilitated by having the inside pocket opening extending vertically so that the right hand and fingers can be advanced or removed moving horizontally inside the jacket 10.

FIGS. 6-8 show another embodiment 50 with several differences as compared to the previous embodiment. First, there is no external panel, and the jackets has one or more pockets 52, each having a respective outer opening 54 and an inner opening 56. A first closing means 54A, such as a zipper can be used to close opening 54 and a second closing means 56A such as another zipper may be used to close opening 56. This arrangement is more suitable for a more formal suit or sports jacket. The second difference is that while in the previous embodiment, the inner and outer openings of the pockets were disposed generally vertically and in parallel to each other, in this embodiment, one of the opening, e.g., the outer opening, is generally horizontal, and the other opening, e.g., the inner opening is generally vertical. Again, an inner vertical opening is preferably so that it can be easily reached with the right hand.

Another difference is that in the first embodiment, each pocket has an inner wall 32 formed from a part of the inner lining 41 if the jacket 10 and the outer wall 30 is formed from a small external fabric piece. In the embodiment of FIGS. 6-8, the inner wall of the pockets could be formed from a lining from the jacket or from a separate piece of fabric and the outer wall could be made of the outer panel 53 of the jacket or a separate piece of fabric. In either case, in the embodiment of FIGS. 6-8 the outline of the pockets is not visible from the outside.

FIGS. 9-11 show a third embodiment 70 of the invention. In this embodiment, again, there is separate outer panel similar to panel 20 to hide the pockets. Pockets such as 72 are provided having vertical openings, including outer opening 74 and an inner opening 76. The outer and inner openings 74, 76 can be optionally closed with a zipper or other means. Except for the opening 74, pocket 72 is not visible from the outside. It may or may not be visible from the inside depending on whether the pocket 72 is formed from separate panels between the outer panel and the inner lining of the jacket, or whether the jacket has no inner lining at all.

Obviously numerous modifications may be made to the invention, without departing from its scope as defined in the appended claims.

Claims

1. A jacket comprising:

a jacket front with at least one pocket provided on the jacket front, said pocket including an outer opening and an inner opening, said openings being arranged and constructed to provide selective access to an interior space within the pocket said inner and outer openings being-parallel to each other.

2. The jacket of claim 1 further comprising a closure member selectively closing at least one of said openings.

3. The jacket of claim 2 wherein said closure member is selected from one of a zipper, a button and hook-and-loop member.

4. (canceled)

5. The jacket of claim 4 wherein said inner opening is generally vertical.

6. (canceled)

7. The jacket of claim 1 wherein said inner and outer openings are generally vertical.

8. (canceled)

9. A jacket comprising:

a jacket front formed of an outer panel and an inner panel;

an arm; and

a plurality of pockets disposed between said inner and outer panel, each pocket having a respective inner and outer opening sized and shaped to provide access to an interior space in the respective pocket;

said outer panel extending over and hiding said pockets and including an extended vertical opening disposed adjacent to said arm, said vertical opening being arranged to provide access to the outer opening of each of said pockets.

10. The jacket of claim 10 further comprising a closure member selectively closing at least one of said openings.

11. The jacket of claim 10 wherein said closure member is selected from one of a zipper, a button and hook-and-loop member.

12. The jacket of claim 9 wherein said inner openings are generally horizontal and said outer openings are generally vertical.

13. The jacket of claim 9 wherein said inner openings are generally vertical.

14. The jacket of claim 9 wherein said inner and outer openings are generally in parallel to each other.

15. The jacket of claim 14 wherein said inner and outer openings are generally vertical.

16. (canceled)

17. The jacket of claim 16 wherein said pockets are aligned vertically and the respective inner openings are vertically aligned with each other.

18. The jacket of claim 9 wherein said pockets are aligned vertically with the respective inner openings being vertically aligned with each other and the outer openings being vertically aligned with each other.

19. The jacket of claim 1 further wherein said inner and outer openings are arranged to allow access to said inner space for the wearer of jacket by reaching into the pocket from the inside or the outside.

20. The jacket of claim 1 further comprising an arm wherein said inner opening is further from said arm than said outer opening.

21. The jacket of claim 1 wherein said inner and outer openings are arranged to provide access to one palm of the wearer from the inside and the other palm of the wearer from the outside.

22. The jacket of claim 1 wherein said pocket has two opposite lateral edges and said openings are disposed at said edges.