PAGE NUMBER INDICATOR

Abstract: A page number indicator made of a single self-contained pressure-sensitive sheet (21) of paper or similar material on which are printed at least as many numbers (24) in the form of a series, arranged in an orderly fashion, as there are numbered pages in books of a wide variety any of which said sheet can be an integral part of to which it can be adhesively affixed. Its surface showing said numbers has been coated with an invisible image-forming chemical composition (22) for the purpose of permanently attaining a dark color at any spot which is briefly rubbed or scratched with the reader's fingernail the end of which being used to place a mark on or near any selected number thereby indicating a page number for future reference.

Description: PAGE NUMBER INDICATOR The invention relates generally to book page indicating devices and more particularly to a page number indicator. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Heretofore, a wide variety of prior art devices entitled bookmarks and book markers have been invented and used by readers since the existence of books. Such devices function by 'being inserted or attached by the reader at a selected place or to a selected page within a book, so as to indicate or mark a book page of interest at any one time, such as the page last read before closing the book, and to be removed and reinserted or reattached at another time, so as to indicate another page of interest. There are also known to be several so-called automatic bookmarks, and although operatively mounted in books, they have distinct shortcomings. The majority of the devices of the class described are adjuncts or appendages which mark only one page at a time, can drop out of books, be inadvertently removed, easily lost or misplaced, often unavailable when needed, cumbersome in their use, complex, and relatively expensive to manufacture. It appears that, due to one or more of said shortcomings and other functional difficulties, only a few of the so-called bookmarks and book markers have been commercially adopted and successfully marketed. There are no devices of the class described known which will allow marking or indicating a single page as well as a plurality of pages in books, regardless of their type and form of manufacture, in a manner which is easy, quick, reliable, versatile, permanent, unobtrusive, and cheap. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION It therefore is the principal object of this completely unique invention to provide, for such practice, a page number indicator which obviates all aforementioned disadvantages of prior art devices and further to provide a page number indicator which is designed to be or to become an integral part of a book, regardless of its type, construction, and configuration. To the attainment of the foregoing principal object and the accomplishment of this and other objects the present invention briefly described comprises essentially a base material in the form of a flat body such as a sheet of paper having suitable properties which shows in print at least as many numbers in the form of a series and arranged in some orderly fashion as there are numbered pages in a given book. The surface of said sheet showing said numbers has been coated with an invisible pressure-sensitive image-forming chemical composition for the purpose of permanently attaining a dark color at any spot thereon which is briefly rubbed or scratched with the blunt edge of a hard object, such as the reader's fingernail the edge of which being used to place a mark on or near any selected number, such a number representing a page number of interest for future reference. Therefore, an important feature of the present invention is the capability of the specially treated surface of the page number indicator, showing numbers which represent the page numbers, to permanently darken wherever rubbed or scratched with a hard object such as the reader's fingernail, i.e. the coated surface providing self-contained means of forming an image by the application of pressure. This feature applies to all embodiments of the present invention, regardless of the various forms of manufacture, and it is based on one of the concepts of producing self-contained carbonless copying paper. Such a concept is disclosed by Raine et al in U.S. Pat. No. 4,165,398 in which is described a method of producing self- contained pressure-sensitive copying material. The method comprises a sheet material such as paper on which is a layer color-developing material and microcapsules enclosing a solutio of a colorless color former which is reactive with the color- developing material to produce a colored product. Pressure causes the capsules to rupture and release the color former which then reacts with the color-developing material on the sheet to produce a color. The page number indicator comprising said coated and printed sheet of suitable size and base material can take different forms of manufacture, for example: one form constituting an integral part of a conventional book by way of the bookbinding process, whereas the coated and printed side of said sheet is the front side of the conventional flyleaf at the beginning of said book or the back side of the conventional flyleaf at the end of said book, or whereas said sheet constitutes one of the end covers of a paperback book the inside of which constituting the page number indicator. In yet another form of manufacture the treated sheet having suitable mechanical properties and constituting the page number indicator is adhesively affixed to one of the aforementioned or other conventional parts of a book after the bookbinding process has been completed. In the foregoing prescribed forms of manufacture each page number indicator shows a number series which represents the exact number of pages contained within the book for which it is manufactured. Yet another form of manufacture is one in which the page number indicator is a self-adhesive sticker, produced in severa different sizes and lengths of number series so as to conform with the standard book sizes and to show at least as many numbers as there are pages contained in the majority of the various books differing in length. Such a form of manufacture enables the reader to equip most existing books with the novel page number indicator himself. Therefore, another important feature of the present inventio based on its simple construction, is its capability of being readily and cheaply incorporated into the process of book aking, either before or after bookbinding, and also of being easily attachable by the reader for the purpose of retrofitting most any type of book with the novel page number indi The above and other objects, advantages, and features of the present invention will become more apparent from the following description of two preferred embodiments thereof taken in conjunction with the accompanying drawing. BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWING FIG.1 is a perspective view of an open book with the back¬ side of its end flyleaf containing a page number indicator and illustrating its use in accordance with the present invention. FIG.2 is a highly magnified sectional view of a portion of the page number indicator in accordance with the present invention. FIG.3 is a perspective view of a book in which the rear book cover incorporates a page number indicator in accordance with the present invention DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS Referring now to the drawing for a detailed description of the preferred embodiments and initially to FIG.l, there is show a typical book generally denoted by the reference numeral 10 with which the page number indicator 20 is associated. The book 10 is conventional and includes oppositely positioned front and back covers 11 and 12 respectively and a plurality of inter¬ mediate numbered pages 13 between the covers. The book also includes a flyleaf 14, such a leaf being one which is typically contained in the front and in the back of books having hard covers and which is normally blank and made of plain paper of a stronger consistency than the intermediate numbered pages 13. The page number indicator being denoted generally by the reference numeral 20 comprises in this preferred embodiment such a flyleaf 14 the backside of which has been coated with an invisible coating 22 on which has been printed a number series 24, arranged in some orderly fashion and representing the page numbers of the intermediate pages 13. Said coating 22 is of a chemical composition which makes the surface of the page number indicator 20 sensitive to pressure, i.e. provides self-contained means of forming an image by the application of pressure, such a concept having been described in the herein¬ before mentioned U.S. Pat. No. 4,165,398. The concept of said patent underlying the present invention is illustrated in FIG.2 which also illustrates the construction of a typical page number indicator 20 in accordance with the present invention in which a flat sheet of self-contained pressure-sensitive material comprises a paper base 21 and a coating 22 which contains microcapsules 23 enclosing a color¬ less color former and particles 25 of a color-developing material on top of which a number series 24 has been printed. The manufacturing process of the page number indicator may also include an adhesive coating 27 on the backside of the base material 21. FIG.3 of the drawing illustrates a preferred embodiment of the present invention for the so-called paperback books which do not have hard covers and do not contain conventional front and back flyleaves. In this preferred embodiment the page numbe indicator 20 comprises the back cover 12 of such a typical book 10, the inside of said book cover 12 incorporating the constituents of said page number indicator 20 as numbered and described in FIG.l and FIG.2. In the preferred embodiments described hereinbefore referenc has been made to various parts of typical books which constitut a part of the page number indicator by providing the base there of in accordance with the present invention, said base having been coated with an invisible pressure-sensitive image-forming chemical composition on which a number series has been printed. It is however readily apparent to those skilled in the art of printing and bookmaking that a typical page number indicator can be manufactured essentially as hereinbefore described, but utilizing a sheet of a base material such as paper having suitable properties which is adhesively affixable to, rather than constituting, any of the aforementioned or similar parts of typical books after the bookbinding process is completed. Still another form of manufacture of the page number indicator will be apparent to those skilled in the pertaining art, one from which anyone may benefit who wishes to retrofit OMPI existing books with the novel page number indicator. In this particular form of manufacture a conventional self-adhesive coating and a protective peel-off sheet are applied to the backside of the page number indicator thereby transforming it into a self-adhesive sticker. Said sticker can be produced in several different sizes and can contain several different lenghts of number series so as to conform with the several standard book sizes and to contain at least as many numbers as there are pages contained in most of the various books differing in length. It is of no importance that a page number indicator of the herein described form of manufacture may contain more numbers in its number series than there are pages in a book to which it may be attached. Regardless of the hereinbefore described or other forms of manufacture the operation of the page number indicator is as follows. In use, the reader of a book containing the novel page number indicator simply marks a number in the manner shown in FIG.l, whereby a brief rubbing or scratching action with the edge of the fingernail will almost instantly produce a permanent darkening of the surface area on which the pressure is exerted thereby indicating a page for future reference. It will be obvious or become readily apparent to the reader of a book containing the novel page number indicator that there are various ways of marking said page number indicator with the fingernail as a means of differentiating, for example, between a last page read and another page or pages of interest for future reference by obliterating certain numbers, crossing out, encircling or underlining certain other numbers, and marking still other numbers with a slash or vertical bars, said examples being illustrated in FIG.l. The aforementioned options bear particular advantage especially to the readers of textbooks, science and technology books,- as well as manuals, handbooks, cookbooks, and the like. While specific embodiments of the invention have been shown and described in detail in order to illustrate the application of the principles of the invention it will be understood that the invention may be embodied otherwise without departing from such principles. The true scope and spirit of the invention is set forth in the appended claims.

Claims: 1. An indicator characterized by a sheet (21) of base material the surface of one face of which has a coating (22) of a pressure-activatable mark-forming chemical composition and on the surface of a face of which is a plurality of indicia (24) visible from said one face, said coating being pressure-activatable to visibly indicate any desired said indicia. 2. An indicator according to claim 1, characterized in that said base material is paper and said indicia is on said one face. 3. An indicator according to claim 2 characterized in that said plurality of indicia are a plurality of numbers in the form of a number series on said coated surface. 4. An indicator according to claim 3 in the form of a page number indicator, characterized in that said coated surface provides self-contained means for marking any desired said numbers, said numbers representing the page numbers . of a book, said marking means provides substantially instantaneous darkening of any spot to which pressure is applied, said pressure consisting of a rubbing or scratching action by a blunt extremity of a hard object such as the end of a fingernail. 5. An indicator according to claim 3 or 4 characterized by being in combination with a book (10) wherein said sheet is an integral part of said book, and said number series represents the pages contained in said book. 6. An indicator and book combination according to claim 5 wherein said number series represents the exact number of numbered pages contained in said book. ■ O i . " fi. 7. An indicator and book combination according to claim 5 characterized in that said sheet is adhesively affixed to a part of a book and said number series represents the exact number of numbered pages contained in said book. 8. An indicator according to claim 2, 3 or 4, characterized in that the surface of the other face of said base material has a self-adhesive coating and a protective peel-off sheet thereon, said self-adhesive coating being of the kind which will enable the indicator to be affixed to a suitable part of a book. 9. A page number indicator for a book characterized by a sheet (21) of base material, the surface of one side of which carries a visible serial plurality of numbers (24) and has a coating (22) of a mark-forming chemical composition pressure-activatable to visibly indicate any desired said number. 10. A page number indicator according to claim 9 characterized by means for attaching said indicator to a book. 11. A page number indicator according to claim 9 characterized by being in combination with a book wherein said indicator is integral with said book and said number series represents the pages of said book. 12. A method of providing an indication of a desired indicia characterized by (a) providing an indicator in the form of a sheet of base material on the surface of one face of which is a coating of pressure-activatable mark-producing chemical composition and on the surface of a face of. which is a plurality of indicia visible from said one face, and (b) activating said pressure-activatable mark-forming chemical composition to indicate a desired said indicia. V 13. A method according to claim 12 for indicating desired page numbers of a book characterized in that said indicia are a serial plurality of numbers corresponding to page numbers of the book.

Inventors: BIELASS MANFRED ERNST, BIELASS, MANFRED, ERNST
Applicants: BIELASS MANFRED ERNST, BIELASS, MANFRED, ERNST
Application year: 1984
Main classification: B42D9
IPC codes: B42D9