Abstract:
The Universal Book Holder permits a person to read from supine, sideways facing, sideways-upward facing as well as from the usual forward and downward facing postures. The book holder accepts hard cover books, paperbacks, magazines and newspapers. Insertion and removal of books is done by the user without changing his/her reading position and does not require any manual dexterity whatever.

Description:
This is a Continuation-In-Part of patent application Ser. No. 08/791,113 filed on Jan. 30, 1997, now abandoned, which claims priority of the Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 60/011,041, filed on Feb. 2, 1996, and also claims the benefit of Document Disclosure No. 384,830, filed on Nov. 13, 1995. 
    
    
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention is directed to an improved book holder which allows a person to read from any position, such as sitting up, reclining, supine, or lying down and facing sideways. This is achieved by providing a structure which holds the reading matter securely in all positions while allowing easy removal and insertion, and a suitable stand for supporting it. 
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention is concerned with a book holder which allows persons to read equally well from standing, sitting, reclining and supine positions, as well as lying down in left or right sideways facing positions. Two concepts which are useful in this description are the EYE LINE and the LINE OF SIGHT of a person. 
     The eye line is an imaginary line passing through both eyes of a person. The line of sight is an imaginary line which extends forward from a person&#39;s eye line along the direction of his or her versions. 
     For instance, the line of sight of someone driving a car would extend forward in a generally horizontal direction from the driver&#39;s eye line which is also horizontal. However, if that driver were to look at the speedometer, his or her eye line would remain horizontal, but the line of sight would then slope downward toward the speedometer. If the driver were to stop at an intersection, lean back and look to the left, for instance to check for oncoming traffic, his or her eye line would slant downward rather than stay horizontal, with the line of sight tilting accordingly. 
     THE PRIOR ART 
     When a person wishes to read a book held in a book holder, the lines of the text should be aligned with his or her eye line, and the plane of the text should extend generally perpendicularly to his/her line of sight. The commercially available models such as table easels, cookbook holders, cantilevered bedside tables and recliner readers were designed for users whose eye lines are horizontal, and who can move the book holder or in some cases tilt it about a horizontal axis to position it relative to their line of sight. Such book holders cannot be used by persons who read lying on their side facing sideways with their eye line slanting downward, or by many others who prefer to read while reclining in the armrest corner of a sofa, where their eye line and their line of sight slant obliquely. For these reasons Applicant believes that there is a need for a truly universal book holder which can be used in all of the situations described above, especially by those who like to change their reading posture from time to time, for instance from sitting in a recliner to lying down on a sofa, or by several members of a household who have different reading habits. 
     The patent literature on book holders goes back more than a century, and the field has been active, even crowded, ever since. However, the only reference to Universal Book holders in the art cited against the parent applications was one foreign patent. A US patent did issue in April 1997, but both of these patents approach the problem of reading in oblique positions in too complex a way to be useful, in Applicant&#39;s opinion. Applicant has reviewed US patent classes 248/444.1, 445, 452, and 454 for patents issued since the date of the parent application, but found no other applicable art. It is true, of course, that some structural members employed by Applicant have been used before, but the Applicant believes that no useful combination of these components been suggested in any of the references. 
     THE INVENTION 
     Recently most of the work has been concerned with the problem of page turning which inverted book holders pose. However, since all of these designs can only be used in certain reading situations as explained in the paragraph above, Applicant has analyzed the reading habits of persons who read lying down in supine and sideways facing positions and has concluded that, at least for recreational reading by persons who are not seriously handicapped, the problem lies in the fatigue of holding and flattening the book for the minutes it takes to read two facing pages, rather than in the few seconds of effort required for page turning, especially if the book holder design allows a page to be easily separated from the adjacent pages before it is turned. 
     Accordingly, the present invention addresses the design of book holders that can be used in all situations of reading by: 
     1. Providing a book holder that facilitates the insertion and removal of books of all types—hard covers as well as new or work paperbacks, magazines and newspapers. 
     2. Providing means to place a book holder in a great many reading positions so as to align it properly with the user&#39;s eye line and line of sight in all situations. 
     3. Providing means to move a book holder easily from one of the aforementioned reading positions to another. 
     4. Providing means to flatten any type of book, magazine, or newspaper in the book holder and to prevent it from moving within or falling out spontaneously, without depending on the type, quality, or presence of book covers. 
     5. Providing means to permit the reading of any lines of text that could be optically obscured by certain members of the book holder. 
     6. Providing a method of separating a page from adjacent pages before page turning. 
     SPECIFICATION 
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     FIG. 1A is a perspective view of a Universal Book Holder. 
     FIG. 1B shows an alternative detail of the book holder. 
     FIG. 2 shows the device in the orientation used by a person facing partially sideways. 
     FIGS. 3 and 4 are side views of alternate mechanical ways of eliminating the edge shadow problem. 
     FIG. 5 shows a support system employing a ball joint. 
     FIG. 6 shows a location of the controls of a support system. 
     FIGS. 7A,  7 B,  7 C,  7 D show the operation of a restraining member. 
     FIG. 8 shows another support system employing a single control. 
     FIG. 9 shows ways of separating a page from adjacent pages before page turning. 
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     In the following description as well as in the claims the term “book” or “books” will also represent magazines, newspapers, pictures, and other matter being examined visually. Similarly the terms “front member” and “transparent front member” will be used to represent any structure which is transparent and rigid enough to allow sufficient visual access to, and support of, a book to serve the purpose, including filamentary arrays and grids. 
     Referring now to FIG. 1A, a transparent front plate  1  and a back plate  2  with side wings  3   a  and  3   b  are attached to the base member  4  so as to form a book receiver  5  of generally rectangular cross section. An open book  6  is inserted from above into the enclosure 5 as indicated by arrow  7 , to be supported by the base member  4 . The figure shows spaces  8   a  and  8   b  between the wings  3   a  and  3   b  respectively and the front plate to allow open magazines, which usually are wider than most books, to protrude on either side. Another configuration of the spaces  1   c  is shown in FIG.  1 B. However, this spacing is not a necessary feature because wide magazines can also be folded at the center crease, allowing one page to be viewed at a time. A vertical slot  9  is cut through the base member  4 . It extends parallel to the front plate  1  for a length of about eight to ten inches at a width of ¼ to ½ inch so as to allow a vertically folded newspaper to be inserted into the device and moved up and down as required for reading. 
     Horizontally folded newspapers are also accepted by the book receiver, protruding through spaces  8   a,b,  and  c  in the same way as open magazines. 
     The upper portion  11  of the back plate  2  extends backward and upward, thus forming an angle with the front plate. This produces a funnel-like, tapered entrance to the enclosure 5, which assures easy insertion and removal of the book  6  from the enclosure. Typical values of the angle are in the 30 to 60 degree range. 
     The height of front plate  1  may be limited to about six inches above base member  4  to permit easy insertion and removal of seven inch high paperbacks. It also was found advantageous to make the front and back plates of the enclosure 5 of different heights, for instance by extending the height of the bent-over portion  11  of the back plate to seven or eight inches above the base  4 . This creates a guide for inserting the book. 
     While a limit on the height of the front plate is important, it creates an optical discontinuity when hard covers or the increasingly popular large paperbacks are read. In practice this is objectionable only for appearance, but it can be overcome simply by applying a shallow bevel to the front plate edge. In the case of short productions runs where custom molding is not feasible, the problem may be solved by creasing a second stable position for the book a fraction of an inch above the base member, for instance by providing a temporary platform to support the book initially as described below. 
     Two flat spring members  12  and  13  are attached to the bent-over portion  11  of the back plate  2 . They have end areas  13  (FIG.  2 ),  41  (FIG. 3) and  98  (FIG.  7 C), and are dimensioned and pre-bent to bear against the front plate  1  with sufficient pressure to create a pre-loaded condition. When an open book  6  is inserted into the enclosure 5, spring members  12  and  13  will bear against the front and back covers  14  and  15  of the book  6  respectively so as to flatten independently the two sides  16  and  17  of the book which are separated by its spine  18  (FIGS. 1A,  2 ). The aforementioned pre-loaded condition serves to minimize the change of spring pressure which occurs as the thickness of the two sides of the book changes when pages are turned. The spacing  19  between the edges  20  and  21  of the springs should be sufficiently wide to accommodate the spine of the thickest book which the book holder is expected to accept. 
     The inner edges  20  and  21  of spring members  12  and  13  are very important in the type of use illustrated in FIG. 2, where the book holder has been rotated about the transverse axis  103  (FIG. 1A) for alignment with the eye line of a person who is lying down in a sideways facing position. 
     The spine  18  of the book is supported by the inner edge  21  of spring  13  to prevent the book from sliding sideways under the weight of its upper portion  22 . Otherwise a weakened cover  23  and any adjacent pages of an old or worn paperback might be bent or crushed as they contact the wing  3   b . The spring members  12 ,  13  must have sufficient lateral stiffness to support the book in such a situation. 
     FIGS. 7C,  7 D, and  8  show details of an alternate design where springs  12 ,  13  have been replaced by rigid bars  98 , hinged at point  80  to the bent-over part of the back member  76  and biased against the cover  82  of the book  81  by springs  99 . 
     FIG. 7A shows that there is no problem for a hard cover book  70  because any hard cover is stiff enough to support the book, even if the friction force generated by the page flattening biasing spring, which is different from the book flattening force, is minimal. However, although the prior art in the patent literature continues to show hard cover books exclusively, todays&#39;s book market is dominated by “paperbacks” and “soft covers”, sometimes having six or seven hundred pages of tough, thin paper in soft, slippery covers that are difficult to hold open. 
     FIG. 7B illustrates what can happen when such a soft cover or paperback book, opened near the beginning or the end of the text, is placed in a Conventional Book Holder. With the friction forces at the areas  71  being low, the book has moved downward under its own weight, with some pages passing through the opening  73 , causing the soft cover  74  with a few adjacent pages to be caught and bent by the restraining wing member  75 , and stopped by the back member  76 . 
     The solution to the problem of damaging soft cover books in this way, already described above, is shown in more detail in FIGS. 7C and 8, where the stop members  98  extend movably across the book receiver between the front and back members  72  and  76  to touch the covers of the book. The figure shows how edge  78  of the stop member  98  engages the spine  79  of the book and prevents further lateral motion. If the book has been open at a page near the center of the book, as illustrated in FIG. 7D, the strongly concave area near the spine of the book would have been engaged by the edge  78  of the restraining member  98 . 
     It is important to note that the springs  12 ,  13  as well as the bars  98  serve two functions. (1) they can flatten the pages of the book against the front member, and (2) they can restrain the book from sliding sideways along the base of the book receiver when it is tilted. The bars are rigid and will always limit sideways motion, and their biasing springs  99  can be made as strong as necessary for page flattening. Similarly, the flat springs  12  and  13  (FIG. 1A) may also be designed to respond to both requirements: their width controls the lateral stiffness, and their thickness determines the flattening pressure. 
     Turning now to a mechanical solution of the optical discontinuity problem discussed above, FIG. 3 shows a pivoting platform  36  which is urged upwards by springs  37  initially to support the book a fraction of an inch above the base  39 . When the user gets close to the edge  38  of the front plate he or she can push the book downward and continue to read. The interaction of the springs  37  and the friction force generated by the book flattening springs  41  will keep the book in place while the obscured lines are read. FIG. 4 shows a variation of the preceding system, where the position of the moving platform  42  is manually controlled by a rotatably mounted lever  43 . 
     SUPPORT STRUCTURES 
     As explained above, a universal book holder must be supported by a structure designed to meet two requirements: 
     1. The plane of the text to be read should extend at least in a general way perpendicularly to the user&#39;s line of sight, and 
     2. The text to be read must be aligned with the eye line of the user. 
     The existing commercial book holders meet the foregoing conditions easily, since all of them were designed for users in standing, sitting, and normal reclining or supine reading postures only, where their eye line is always horizontal. By contrast, the structures supporting a Universal Book Holder must allow alignment with eye line orientations ranging from horizontal for users in upright or in normal reclining postures, to slanting at any angle for those who lie facing sideways or who recline into the corner of a sofa. Universal Book Holders must thus be allowed to rotate about three roughly orthogonal axes. 
     The task of positioning the book receiver correctly is greatly simplified if the respective axes of rotation  101 ,  102 , and  103 , are placed to extend respectively parallel and perpendicularly to the base member as shown in FIG. 1A, and if the three rotations act “independently”, meaning that any one of them will not substantially interfere with adjustments controlled by the other rotations. 
     The three alternate control systems described below have been designed to be operated by the user from his/her reading position. 
     The bail joint of FIG. 5 is one of the simplest of these devices, but since it can move in all directions when its lock is released, it could confuse some users looking only for small adjustments. Mounting it on the back member of the book receiver, as shown in FIG. 5, limits rotation about the horizontal axis to about 90 degrees, which, however, may not be adequate for all applications. As shown in the figure, it includes a friction member  44  and a Belville spring  45  to present spontaneous motion if the lock  46  is opened too far. 
     Another system of controlling rotation is pictured in FIG. 6, where three knobs  47 ,  48 , and  49 , which lock rotation, are clearly separated, and where knob  48  controls a full 360 degree rotation about the vertical, which is useful to convert the book holder from right to left side use. Spring washers should be inserted below all control knobs to prevent rapid spontaneous rotations of the book holder when the control knob is loosened. 
     FIG. 8 shows a third rotation control system. It uses a single clamping member  93  to control rotation about the horizontal and transverse axes, and allows about 150 degrees of rotation about the horizontal axis  101  as compared with about 90 degrees permitted by the ball joint of FIG.  5 . Rotation about the vertical axis is separate in either system, but this is not a disadvantage in this instance, becuase this rotation does not affect the height of the center of gravity of the book receiver and thus does not require adjustable clamping. 
     The axle bolt  83 , back member  76 , rotation transmitting member  86 , and friction pad  85  are forced by connecting rivets  84  to rotate together in bearings  88  (transverse axis  103 ) of the intermediate member  87 , which in turn can rotate about the horizontal upper portion  94  of angle rod  92  (horizontal axis). The clamping member  93  controls the clamping torques for rotation about the  101  and  103  axes. Rotation about the vertical axis  102  takes place at the junction  90  of angle rod  92  with a floor stand or with an under-the-mattress platform post  91 . 
     The elevation of the book receiver with respect to the user&#39;s eye line, as well the distance between eye line and book receiver may change with axis  101  rotation. However, the changes are negligible if the horizontal axis of rotation  101  is placed within an area extending to six inches behind the front member as delineated by boundary line  104 ,  105 , FIG.  8 . 
     A mechanical stop  89  should be provided to limit downward rotation of the book receiver abut the horizontal axis to about 60 degrees from the vertical. 
     BOOK INSERTION AND PAGE TURNING 
     The problems of book insertion and removal and of page turning have always been serious obstacles to designers of INVERTED book holders. Many patents have issued on the subject, almost all of them proposing to secure the book in the book holder by clamps, clips, or VELCRO® strips, to be moved and tightened by the user. Pages were to be turned by moving them into and out of restraining members one at the time, making browsing impossible. The problems are even more complex for UNIVERSAL book holders which must also operate from upward facing and sideways tilting positions. 
     The recent U.S. Pat. No. 5,615,856 to Simington is an example of what has been proposed heretofore, and why there is a paucity of disclosures of truly universal book holders in this otherwise crowded field. 
     These complication may be overcome by simplifying the removal and re-insertion of a book as well as the turning of pages to the point where it will be acceptable for recreational reading, this method being based on the difference between active and passive inserting, retaining and restraining of books in a book holder. 
     ACTIVE INSERTING is a procedure whereby insertion of a book into a book holder requires movement of mechanical components of the book holder by the user, examples being shown in U.S. Pat. No. 5,615,856, (1997), lines 6 to 45, and in Czech Patent 77,700 (1959), FIG. 3, where four springs and clips  16 , 17 , 18 , 19  retain the pages of a hard cover book. 
     PASSIVE INSERTING is a procedure whereby the user can, without leaving his/her reading position, simply insert a book into the book holder, where it is retained automatically. 
     ACTIVE and PASSIVE REMOVAL of a book from a book holder are defined in the same ways. 
     Similarly, the terms ACTIVE and PASSIVE RESTRAINING apply, depending on whether action by the user is required to position restraining members in order to limit spontaneous movement of the book in the book receiver after insertion of a book, or whether the restraining members act automatically after insertion. 
     The book holder described in this specification operates exclusively in the passive modes defined above and may be oriented and aligned by users from any desired reading position without substantially altering the elevation or reading distance of the book receiver relative to the user. Pages may be turned as illustrated in FIG. 9 as follows: 
     1. Separate the corner of the page to be tuned by lifting it from the adjacent pages, using the forefinger or the thumb of the proximate hand while the book remains in the book holder, as shown in FIG.  9 . 
     2. Lift the book, then turn the lifted page and re-insert the book using both hands as shown in FIG. 9, into the book receiver.