Patent ID: 9237796
Filing Date: 2016-01-19
CPC Classification: A45F

Claim Text:
1. An assistive device worn on a thumb of a user's hand and one other finger of the user's hand that aids in gripping and supporting a hand-held object where said assistive device is comprised of a strip of flexible material with two ends, a thumb-end and a finger end; and said strip having two edges, an inner-edge and an outer-edge; such that when the device is worn on the user's thumb and the user's finger, the inner-edge is closest to the user's palm and the outer-edge is opposite the inner-edge; where the strip has a thumb-loop formed by folding the thumb-end over itself and having the thumb-end thereof secured to an intermediate portion of said strip where the thumb-loop is sized to fit the user's thumb such that said user's thumb can be inserted into the thumb-loop, where a width of said strip on the thumb-end is long enough to form the thumb-loop that extends beyond the user's interphalangeal thumb joint when the user's thumb is inserted into said thumb-loop; where the strip has a finger-loop formed by folding the finger end over itself and having the finger end thereof secured to an intermediate portion of said strip where the finger-loop is sized to fit one other finger of the user such that said user's one other finger can be inserted into said finger-loop; where, when the device is worn by inserting the thumb in the thumb-loop and one other finger in the finger-loop, said strip, between the thumb-loop and the finger-loop, supports said hand-held object at its base and wherein a weight of the hand-held object pulls said thumb-end, which is encapsulated by said thumb-loop, and said finger, which is encapsulated by said finger-loop, together to aid in gripping and supporting the hand-held object; where said strip has a greater width at the thumb-end compared to a lesser width at the finger end; where the greater width of said strip at the thumb-end tapers from the thumb-end to the lesser width at the finger end in a non-linear way; and where said outer-edge between the thumb-loop and finger-loop has a greater linear length than the said inner-edge between the thumb-loop and the finger-loop.