Novelty Drinking Straw with Modular Building Blocks
The present invention relates to a novelty and educational drinking instrument for human beverage consumption consisting of a series of interlocking, interchangeable or inter-connectable three-dimensional receptacles of varying shapes, sizes, colors, materials and exterior or interior coatings. Each receptacle has at least one connector of a predetermined size and shape that will couple and decouple from another receptacle. Further, each receptacle individually and multiple receptacles coupled together will form an elongated cavity, allowing liquid to be drawn through it from a beverage container or multiple beverage containers to an end consumer. The multiple receptacles link together via their respective connectors to spell out words, phrases, symbols, numbers or combinations of for use as a drinking instrument.
This invention relates to the field of drinking tubes. More specifically, the present invention relates to a modular drinking straw for transferring liquid. Instead of one solid cylindrical tube, this invention describes the construction of a drinking straw using modular, interlocking receptacles of varying shapes, sizes, colors, materials, interior and exterior coatings coupling together to form a straw. This invention is designed as a creative, fun and educational tool for children and adults to teach them about spelling, shapes, letters, numbers, holidays and colors.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTIONA drinking straw is a cylindrical tube having two open ends. One end is placed in a beverage and the other end is placed in a person's mouth. By applying suction through the end of the straw in the mouth, a small amount of the beverage is drawn up through the straw and into the person's mouth for consumption.
This straw is also designed for use as a novelty toy at parties and social gatherings. A further intention of this invention is to teach counting and assist with spelling and language learning. A further intention of this invention is to be a fun way to show support for brands, marketers and logos using receptacle pieces in the shapes of branded content.
DESCRIPTION OF THE RELATED ARTLipson in U.S. Pat. No. 5,427,315 describes a novelty straw with a planar insert having two loops that can slide around the cylindrical portion of a straw. However, Lipson does not teach interlocking building blocks to create a segmented straw.
Cohen, U.S. Pat. No. 4,576,336, Lipson, U.S. Pat. No. 5,184,774, Butsch, U.S. Pat. No. 2,557,411, Gildersleeve, U.S. Pat. No. 2,063,803, and Horvath, U.S. Pat. No. 3,517,884 all teach novelty straws with spirals and curvatures. However Cohen, Lipson, Butsch, Gildersleeve, and Horvath do not teach using interlocking and interchangeable building blocks to create a novelty straw.
Leung et al., U.S. Pat. No. 6,129,292 teach a novelty straw with a character. However Leung does not teach interlocking building blocks to create a segmented straw wherein the building blocks are shaped as various shapes, letters, characters, symbols or objects.
Smaczny, U.S. Pat. No. 3,260,462 teaches a drinking tube for drinking from more than one container (col. 1, lines 9-13, 17-20). Smaczny also teaches a drinking tube with a mixing chamber (
Shakur-Jenkins, U.S. Patent Application Number 2011/0057050 teaches an extendable and flexible drinking straw (
The following is a non-limiting written description of embodiments illustrating various aspects of this invention.
As used herein, the term building block broadly encompasses all three-dimensional receptacles. As used herein, the term connector encompasses any mechanism to attach to separate segments.
This invention uses modular, building blocks to create a drinking tube wherein liquid can flow from the liquid container to the user via the blocks and the blocks' connectors. Each block is a three-dimensional receptacle containing a cavity that liquid can pass through. The size of the cavity can be a cylindrical tube through the center of the receptacle or the cavity can be the entire interior surface area of the receptacle including the specialized receptacle shape or portions thereof. Each receptacle and connector is made of a nonhazardous material so that a human can imbibe the liquid after passing through the receptacle.
DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTIONEach receptacle and connector can be made from a material wherein the color of the receptacle or connector changes depending on the temperature of the liquid passing through the interior cavity of the receptacle or connector. In one embodiment each receptacle is made out of or coated on the interior or exterior surface with a color changing material such as a thermoplastic elastomer (TPE). Specifically, the TPE can be a styrenic block copolymer (TPE-s), thermoplastic olefin (TPE-o), elastomeric alloy (TPE-v or TPV), thermoplastic polyurethane (TPU), thermoplastic copolyester, or thermoplastic polyamide.
Further, each receptacle and connector can be made from a biodegradable plastic such as, but not limited to an oxybiodegrable or hydrobiodegradable plastic. Each receptacle can be made from any type of plastic such as, but not limited to low density polyethylene, polypropylene, and silicon.
Further, each receptacle may contain at least one light-emitting diode (LED). Further, each connector may contain at least one light-emitting diode (LED).
Further, each receptacle can be any color in the color palette, any combination of colors in the color palette, have any type of finish, sparkles, glitter, clear or colorless finish and illuminating enhancers such as phosphorescent compounds such as but not limited to zinc sulfide and strontium aluminate.
In other embodiments, the interior of each receptacle or connectors can be prefilled with a liquid, candy, chocolate and other foodstuffs.
In others embodiments, the interior of each receptacle or coupling can be coated with a superhydrophobic coating to prevent liquid, bacteria, foodstuffs or other germs from adhering to the interior facets of the receptacle or coupling. In a preferred embodiment, the cavity of the receptacle is coated with superhydrophobic nanoparticles such as manganese oxide polystyrene, zinc oxide polystyrene, precipitated calcium carbonate, carbon nano-tube structures, and silica nano-coatings.
Further, each three-dimensional receptacle can be but is not limited to, the shape of a letter, numeral, geometric shape, pattern, logo, emoji, animal, cartoon character, household object, inanimate object, punctuation mark, facial expression, hair style, food, flag, national symbol, photographic image, photographic rendering of a person, hashtag, symbol, musical symbol, foodstuff, dingbat, webding, wingding, and common bullets.
The shape of the letter can be from any standard or non-standard alphabet including but not limited to the following majuscule and minuscule alphabet sets: Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Basque, Belarussian, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Catalan, Cebuano, Chichewa, Cantonese, Corsican, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hausa, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Hungarian, Icelandic, lgbo, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Malagasy, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Mandarin, Maori, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Scots Gaelic, Serbian, Sesotho, Shona, Sindhi, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swedish, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukranian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh, Xhosa, Yiddish, Yoruba and Zulu.
The shape of the letter or punctuation mark can be from all standard and non-stand fonts including, but not limited to Abadi MT Condensed Light, Allegro, Albertus Extra Bold, Albertus Medium, Antique Olive, Arial, Arial Black, Arial Narrow, Bazooka, Book Antigua, Bookman Old Style, Boulder, Calisto MT, Calligrapher, Century Gothic, Century Schoolbook, Cezanne, CG Omega, CG Times, Charlesworth, Chaucer, Clarendon Condensed, Comic Sans MS, Copperplate Gothic Bold, Copperplate Gothic Light, Cornerstone, Coronet, Courier, Courier New, Cuckoo, Dauphin, Denmark, Fransiscan, Garamond, Geneva, Haettenschweiler, Heather, Helvetica, Herald, Impact, Jester, Letter Gothic, Lithograph, Lithograph Light, Long Island , Lucida Console, Lucida Handwriting, Lucida Sans, Lucida Sans Unicode, Marigold, Market, Matisse ITC, MS LineDraw, News GothicMT, OCR A Extended, Old Century, Pegasus, Pickwick, Poster, Pythagoras, Sceptre, Sherwood, Signboard, Socket, Steamer, Storybook, Subway, Tahoma, Technical, Teletype, Tempus Sans ITC, Times, Times New Roman, Times New Roman PS, Trebuchet MS, Tristan, Tubular, Unicorn, Univers, Univers Condensed, Vagabond, Verdana, and Westminster.
The numeric shape of the receptacle can be, but is not limited to the standard numeric digits: 0, 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, and 9 or any permutation of these digits and all fonts for these digits or permutations of.
The geometric shape of the receptacle can be, but is not limited to a rectangular prism, triangular prism, hexagonal prism, pyramid, square pyramid, rectangular pyramid, triangular pyramid, hexagonal pyramid, cylinder, cone, and sphere.
The animal shape of the receptacle can be, but is not limited to an aardvark, albatross, alligator, alpaca, amphibian, anaconda, angelfish, ant, anteater, antelope, ape, armadillo, baboon, barnacle, barracuda, bass, bat, bear, beaver, bee, beetle, bird, bison, boa, boar, bonobo, buffalo, bug, butterfly, camel, cardinal, caribou, cat, caterpillar, cattle, chameleon, cheetah, chicken, chimpanzee, chipmunk, clam, cobra, coral, cougar, cow, coyote, crab, crane, cricket, crocodile, crow, cuckoo, cicada, deer, dingo, dinosaur, dog, dolphin, donkey, dove, dragonfly, dragon, duck, eagle, eel, elephant, elk, emu, falcon, ferret, finch, firefly, fish, flamingo, fly, fowl, fox, frog, gazelle, gecko, gerbil, gibbon, gila monster, giraffe, goat, goldfish, goose, gopher, gorilla, grasshopper, guinea pig, hamster, hare, hawk, hedgehog, heron, herring, hippopotamus, hornet, horse, hummingbird, hyena, iguana, impala, jaguar, jay, jellyfish, kangaroo, kiwi, koala, koi, komodo dragon, ladybug, lemming, lemur, leopard, lion, lizard, llama, lobster, loon, lynx, macaw, mackerel, manatee, marlin, marsupial, mastodon, mollusk, monkey, moose, mosquito, moth, mouse, mule, nightingale, ocelot, octopus, opossum, orangutan, ostrich, otter, owl, ox, panda, panther, parakeet, parrot, peacock, pelican, penguin, pheasant, pig, pigeon, piranha, platypus, polar bear, pony, porcupine, porpoise, possum, prairie dog, prawn, puffin, puma, python, quail, rabbit, raccoon, rat, raven, reindeer, reptile, rhinoceros, roadrunner, rodent, rooster, salamander, salmon, scallop, scorpion, seahorse, shark, sheep, shrimp, silkworm, skunk, sloth, slug, snail, snake, spider, squid, squirrel, starfish, stingray, stork, sturgeon, swallow, swan, swordfish, tarantula, tasmanian devil, tiger, toad, tortoise, toucan, trout, tuna, turkey, turtle, unicorn, walrus, wasp, whale, wildebeest, wolf, wolverine, woodpecker, worm, yak, and zebra.
In another embodiment the shape of the receptacle can be a punctuation mark such as but not limited to a comma, semicolon, colon, dash, hyphen, bracket, braces, parenthesis, hashtag, apostrophe, quotation mark, ellipse, full stop, exclamation point, exclamation mark, period, diacritic mark, diacritic mark on top of a letter, accent mark, and accent mark on top of a letter.
In another embodiment the shape of the receptacle can be a foodstuff, such as but not limited to asparagus, apples, avocado, artichoke, avocado roll, bacon, bagels, bananas beans, BBQ, barley, beer, bread, broccoli, burrito, cabbage, cake, carrots, celery, cheese, chicken, catfish, chips, chocolate, chowder, clams, coffee, cookies, corn, cucumbers, cupcakes, crabs, cereal, dates, dips, duck, dumplings, donuts, eggs, eggrolls, fajita, falafel, fondue, French toast, garlic, ginger, gnocchi, granola, grapes, green beans, guacamole, gumbo, ham, hamburger, honey, hot dogs, ice cream, jelly, jalapeno, kale, kabobs, ketchup, kiwi, lasagna, meatballs, milk, milkshake, nuts, pasta, pizza, pepperoni, pancakes, quesadilla, quiche, sandwich, spinach, spaghetti, sushi, toast, tomatoes, waffles, wine, yogurt, and zucchini.
In another embodiment the shape of the receptacle can be a holiday symbol such as a jack-o-lantern for Halloween or heart for Valentine's Day or gingerbread person.
Further, each three-dimensional receptacle has at least one connector to attach one receptacle to another receptacle. The connectors form a leak-proof coupling system wherein liquid can flow from the beverage container to the connector through the coupling into the receptacle cavity or portion thereof and into another connector. Further, each receptacle can be attached to an extender which is a hollow tube of predetermined length and diameter that has at least one male connector with barbs or at least one female connector that can couple without allowing liquid or other foodstuff to leak from the extender to the receptacle.
In a preferred embodiment, the receptacle has one female connector on one exterior facet and one male connector on an opposite exterior facet. The male connector is a double barb capable of being inserted into a female connector on another receptacle.
In another embodiment the receptacle has two male connectors on opposite, exterior facets. Each male connector has two barbs. A cylindrical tube or connection piece can attach to each male connector to be link the two receptacle segments.
Each of the interlocking receptacles can be designed for multiple use with care and regular cleaning. In a preferred embodiment, each receptacle is made of a recyclable material.
Embodiments of the invention are subsequently described in more detail based on drawing figures, wherein:
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Although only a few embodiments of the present invention have been described herein, it should be understood that the present invention might be embodied in many other specific forms without departing from the spirit or scope of the invention. Therefore, the present examples and embodiments are to be considered as illustrative and not restrictive, and the invention may be modified within the scope of the appended claims.
Claims
1. A flexible drinking instrument system comprising:
- at least two three-dimensional receptacles of a predetermined shape,
- the first receptacle having at least one connector that can couple and decouple from a second three-dimensional receptacle of a second predetermined shape,
- the connector having an orifice wherein liquid can enter the first receptacle from the second receptacle or exit the first receptacle from the second receptacle,
- the second receptacle having at least one connector that can couple and decouple from the first receptacle,
- wherein the first receptacle has a cavity that is capable of containing a liquid without leaking,
- wherein the second receptacle has a cavity capable of containing a liquid without leaking,
- a coupling system attaching the first receptacle's connector to the second receptacle's connector having a cavity capable of containing a liquid without leaking.
2. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the first or second receptacle's connector can be used as a mouthpiece for imbibing.
3. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the first and second receptacle's coupling system attaching the at least first and second receptacles creates a seal to prevent a liquid from leaking and the first or second connector has at least one barb.
4. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the shape of the first or second receptacle can be a letter from an alphabet, wherein the alphabet can be: Afrikaans, Albanian, Amharic, Arabic, Armenian, Azerbaijani, Basque, Belarussian, Bengali, Bosnian, Bulgarian, Burmese, Catalan, Cebuano, Chichewa, Cantonese, Corsican, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, English, Esperanto, Estonian, Filipino, Finnish, French, Frisian, Galician, Georgian, German, Greek, Gujarati, Haitian Creole, Hausa, Hawaiian, Hebrew, Hindi, Hmong, Hungarian, Icelandic, lgbo, Indonesian, Irish, Italian, Japanese, Javanese, Kannada, Kazakh, Khmer, Korean, Kurdish, Kyrgyz, Lao, Latin, Latvian, Lithuanian, Luxembourgish, Macedonian, Malagasy, Malay, Malayalam, Maltese, Mandarin, Maori, Marathi, Mongolian, Nepali, Norwegian, Pashto, Persian, Polish, Portuguese, Punjabi, Romanian, Russian, Samoan, Scots Gaelic, Serbian, Sesotho, Shona, Sindhi, Sinhala, Slovak, Slovenian, Somali, Spanish, Sundanese, Swahili, Swedish, Tajik, Tamil, Telugu, Thai, Turkish, Ukranian, Urdu, Uzbek, Vietnamese, Welsh, Xhosa, Yiddish, Yoruba and Zulu.
5. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the shape of the first or second receptacle can be a numeral.
6. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the shape of the first or second receptacle can be an animal.
7. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the shape of the first or second receptacle can be a food.
8. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the shape of the first or second receptacle can be a geometric shape.
9. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the shape of the first or second receptacle can be a punctuation mark.
10. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the interior cavity of the first or second receptacle is coated with a hydrophobic or superhydrophobic coating.
11. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the interior cavity of the first or second receptacle is coated with hydrophobic nanoparticles such as manganese oxide polystyrene, zinc oxide polystyrene, precipitated calcium carbonate, carbon nano-tube structures, and silica nano-coatings.
12. The drinking instrument system according to claim 10, wherein each nanoparticle is between 1 and 10,000 nanometers.
13. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the first or second receptacle each has at least one male coupling.
14. The drinking instrument system according to claim 14, wherein the at least one male coupling has at least one barb.
15. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the first or second receptacle each has at least one female coupling.
16. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the first or second receptacle is be made out of a material containing a thermoplastic color compound such as polypropylene or thermoplastic elastomer so the receptacle changes color depending on the temperature of the liquid inside of its cavity.
17. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the first or second receptacle is made out of a recyclable material.
18. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the first or second receptacle is made out of a reusable material.
19. The drinking instrument system according to claim 1, wherein the first or second receptacle contains at least one light-emitting diode.
20. A drinking instrument comprising a three-dimensional receptacle, a male connector, a female connector, wherein the receptacle, the male connector and the female connector all have a cavity wherein liquid can be contained, the receptacle capable of connecting to another three-dimensional receptacle with at least one male and at least one female connector.
Type: Application
Filed: Jun 17, 2016
Publication Date: Dec 21, 2017
Applicant: Mohawk Group Inc. (New York, NY)
Inventor: Randy Alan Stein, JR. (Brooklyn, NY)
Application Number: 15/186,185