Abstract:
A protective flexible car cover which is designed to be attached and detached to a foldable deployment rod which facilitates deploying and removing the car cover without any motorized aids and which also provides for convenient storage of the car cover when it is not in use. The attachment of the car cover to the deployment rod is conveniently effected by a material like Velcro®. The car cover has magnets or weights around its periphery to help hold the cover in place while being deployed and after deployment. Additional panels on the underside of the car cover and at the rear of the car cover are provided which can be held in place by the side doors of the vehicle or by the trunk lid or rear door of the vehicle.

Description:
REFERENCES CITED  
     US Patent Documents  
       [0001]    
       
         
               
               
               
               
             
           
               
                   
               
               
                   
               
             
             
               
                 4324427 
                 April, 1982 
                 Huang et al. 
                 293/106 
               
               
                 4657298 
                 April, 1987 
                 O 
                 296/136.03 
               
               
                 4718711 
                 February, 1988 
                 Rabbit 
                 296/136.03 
               
               
                 4834446 
                 May, 1989 
                 Tung-Chow 
                 296/136.03 
               
               
                 4842324 
                 June, 1989 
                 Carden 
                 296/136.11 
               
               
                 4958881 
                 September, 1990 
                 Piros 
                 296/98 
               
               
                 5176421 
                 January, 1993 
                 Fasiska 
                 296/136.03 
               
               
                 5188417 
                 February, 1993 
                 Curchod 
                 296/136.04 
               
               
                 5242206 
                 September, 1993 
                 Heck 
                 296/136.02 
               
               
                 5401074 
                 March, 1995 
                 Timerman. 
                 296/136.02 
               
               
                 5409286 
                 April, 1995 
                 Huang 
                 296/136.04 
               
               
                 5456515 
                 October, 1995 
                 Dang 
                 296/95.1 
               
               
                 5597196 
                 January, 1997 
                 Gibbs 
                 296/98 
               
               
                 5597197 
                 January, 1997 
                 Mowar et al. 
                 296/136.04 
               
               
                 5664825 
                 September, 1997 
                 Henke et al. 
                 296/136.02 
               
               
                 5800006 
                 September, 1998 
                 Pettigrew. 
                 296/136.02 
               
               
                 5855406 
                 January, 1999 
                 Vargo 
                 296/136.03 
               
               
                 6220648 
                 April, 2001 
                 Daniel 
                 296/136.02 
               
               
                   
               
             
          
         
       
       
          CoolCar™, Crown Publishing Company, 26949 Whitehorse, Santa Clarita, CA 91387  
          Roll up™ car cover, sold online at http://thecarcover.com/ or Infomercial.TV. Inc., P.O. Box 2667, Venice, CA 90294  
          DuPont Tyvek® or Tyvek® Plus at the website http://www.tyvek.com/na/covers/english/carcover.html  
          Kimberly-Clark NOAH® or BLOCK IT® Evolution and related products, described at the website http://www.block-it.com/home.htm  
          Car Cover Direct, at the website http://www.carcoversdirect.com/car covers.php  
          Car Cover World, at the website http://www.carcoverworld.com/  
       
     
       FEDERALLY SPONSORED RESEARCH  
       [0008]     This invention was not the result of any Federally sponsored research project  
       BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION  
       [0009]     1. Field of the Invention  
         [0010]     There are many different car covers available in the open market and even more have been the focus of prior patents. Most such covers teach the use of a flexible cloth material. The reasons to use a car cover can include at least the following: 1) diminish heating the interior of the vehicle when parked in the sun with the concomitant discomfort to passengers, 2) protection of the exterior of the vehicle against sun exposure, bird droppings, sap from trees, chemicals such as oil contained in the runoff encountered in some garage facilities, blowing sand and/or salt encountered near the seashore etc. 3) protection of the interior of the vehicle against sun exposure and heating, 4) protection of the exterior of a car against impact, such as encountered in hail storms or accidental minor collisions during transportation. Car covers can be various sizes, depending on the envisioned use. For example, to minimize solar heating and sun/heat damage to the vehicle interior it is only necessary to cover the window spaces to obtain a beneficial effect. The benefits of an exterior cover are documented by the Dupont company in their information about their materials Tyvek® or Tyvek® Plus on their website http://www.tyvek.com/na/covers/english/carcover2.html. If all exterior surfaces are to be protected then the car cover must fit around the entire vehicle. In general covering a car with a flexible material resistant to sun and other damaging elements of nature is not convenient, nor is the storage of the cover when not in use. The cover must be held onto the vehicle firmly to resist the effects of wind or to minimize the potential for theft of the cover, which often leads to a multiple tie-down design that is also inconvenient and time-consuming. These factors tend to discourage users from buying car covers or even using a car cover unless the vehicle is expected to be out of use for a significant period of time. Thus there is a need for a simple car cover assembly that makes the deployment and removal of the cover quick and convenient and one that can be stored quickly and compactly when not in use, such that the owner would be willing to use the assembly for relatively short periods of parking. It is preferable not to make any permanent installations on the vehicle exterior or truck storage area to accomplish these aims.  
         [0011]     2. Description of Prior Art  
         [0012]     There are many designs for car covers per se that do not necessarily have any provision for improved ease of deployment. For example there are a number of examples of a car cover designed to protect a vehicle against impact, using an energy-absorbing material (Daniel, April, 2001, U.S. Pat. No. 6,220,648; Pettigrew, September, 1998, U.S. Pat. No. 5,800,006; Henke et al., September, 1997, U.S. Pat. No. 5,664,825; Timerman, March, 1995, U.S. Pat. No. 5,401,074; Heck, September, 1993, U.S. Pat. No. 5,242,206), which would obviously be relatively difficult to deploy and no provision is made for deployment of the car cover in these patents.  
         [0013]     There are a number of designs in the patent literature in which a roller device is mounted in the trunk area of a vehicle for the purpose of holding a car cover (Vargo, January, 1999, U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,406; Gibbs, January, 1997, U.S. Pat. No. 5,597,196; Dang, October, 1995, U.S. Pat. No. 5,456,515; Huang, April, 1995, U.S. Pat. No. 5,409,286; Curchod, February, 1993, U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,417; Fasiska, January, 1993, U.S. Pat. No. 5,176,421; Piros, September, 1990, U.S. Pat. No. 4,958,881; Carden, June, 1989, U.S. Pat. No. 4,842,324; Tung-Chow, May, 1989, U.S. Pat. No. 4,834,446; Rabbit, February, 1988, U.S. Pat. No. 4,718,711; O, April, 1987, U.S. Pat. No. 4,657,298; Mowar et al., January, 1997, U.S. Pat. No. 5,597,197. In the U.S. Pat. No. 5,855,406 to Vargo, January 1999 a spring-biased rollup system for a car cover that is stored in the car trunk for a car cover is taught. This system is considerably more complex than the simple deployment device in the present invention, which does not require any spring or motor-aided actions. A similar spring-aided roller system is taught in the U.S. Pat. No. 5,597,196 to Gibbs, January 1997 and U.S. Pat. No. 5,456,515 to Dang, October, 1995. This device is fixed within the vehicle trunk area, which will interfere with normal storage in the trunk as well as require being fixed to the interior walls of the trunk. The present invention does not require any mounts to be fixed to any portion of the vehicle. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,324,427 to Huang et al., April, 1982 a car bumper is modified to hold a spring-activated roller on which a car cover is mounted. In additional to the mechanical complexity of this device, a permanent fixture must be added to the automobile. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,176,421 to Fasiska, January, 1993 an electrically driven roller system is taught, in addition to the use of a hand crank or a spring-actuated system. In this case a containment tube for the cover is mounted in the vehicle trunk. A motor, spring or manually operated roller system that mounts to the underside of the vehicle trunk lid is taught by U.S. Pat. No. 4,958,881 to Piros, September, 1990. A very similar device is taught in U.S. Pat. No. 4,657,298 to O, April, 1987. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,834,446 to Tung-Chow, May., 1989 a mechanically cranked or electric-motor actuated device that remains in the vehicle trunk winds a belt to which the car cover is attached is taught. While requiring less volume that a trunk-mounted roller, the system is mechanically complex and does not aid the user in spreading the car cover evenly over the surface of the vehicle, which is accomplished in the present invention. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,718,711 to Rabbit, February, 1988 a double roller-bar system is taught, one end of which is attached to the interior of the trunk and which requires both roller bars to reside on the vehicle exterior when the car cover is deployed. While the use of a roller bar is expected to aid in the deployment of the car cover, in order to be useful the bar must be at least the width of the vehicle, which makes it less convenient for storage. The present invention avoids this inconvenience by allowing the deployment device to be removed when the car cover is in place. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,597,197 to Mowar et al., January, 1997 there is no mechanical deployment aid but a cross-member attached to the front of the car cover is taught, which is supposed to aid in the deployment of the cover. Unlike the present invention, this cross-member is not designed to deploy the cover by a simple rolling action but instead requires the user to support the weight of the cover plus cross-member. Depending on the weight of the car cover material this is likely to be awkward to carry out.  
         [0014]     There are a number of designs for a car cover alone, with no provision for improving the ease of deployment. For example U.S. Pat. No. 5,409,286 to Huang, April, 1995 teaches the use of a form-fitting cover with an elastic band on the periphery of the cover to hold the cover more tightly to the passenger compartment of the vehicle. This obviously is a more difficult cover to deploy or remove than the present invention. In U.S. Pat. No. 5,188,417 to Curchod, February, 1993 a similar system is described except that explicit provision is made for a storage pouch that is mounted in the trunk. The present invention does not require that the storage of the car cover be located in any specific part of the vehicle. In U.S. Pat. No. 4,842,324 to Carden, June, 1989 a four-sided cab cover is described in which a better fit to the car contour is proposed by employing V-shaped cuts in the covering material. Tubular attachments to the cover are described which are supposed to help hold the cover in place and in particular the rear-most tube is supposed to reside in the trunk of the vehicle in order to fix the cover in place, requiring the user to open and close the vehicle trunk each time the cover is used. The present invention allows the user to attach the car cover by enclosing it in the passenger compartment with specifically designed panels as well as with a panel located such that it can be enclosed in the truck, at the user&#39;s option.  
         [0015]     There are a number of commercial car cover products. For example see the following companies and their websites: 1) Car Covers Direct, at the website http://www.carcoversdirect.com/car covers.php 2) Car Cover World, at the website http://www.carcoverworld.com/. All of the covers offered for sale are large sheets of a size to fit a particular vehicle or class of vehicles, attached to the vehicle by an elastic material that runs around the periphery of the cover and fits under the vehicle carriage. None of these products have any provision to aid in the deployment of the car cover. The fact that deployment and removal of a car cover is inconvenient is reflected in the two products CoolCar™ car cover and Roll up™ car cover. The CoolCar™ car cover teaches the use of padded weights around the edge of the cover, to help facilitate throwing the car over the top of the vehicle. This is a completely different approach to rolling and unrolling the car cover, as disclosed in the present invention. The CoolCar™ can be held firmly in place by closing the doors on the cover, thereby trapping a portion of the reflective material inside the car, where heat can be partially trapped, as well as causing additional wear and tear on the cover itself. In the present invention there are specific panels on the underside of the car cover for this purpose. For the Roll up™ car cover an electric windup device is used to roll the car cover inside a drum, unlike the present invention which does not use any motorized devices and rolls the car cover onto a foldable rod (referred to as the “deployment wand”). While the Roll up™ approach provides convenient storage for the car cover and should be effective in helping remove the car cover, it is not obvious that it facilitates deployment of the car cover.  
       SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION  
       [0016]     1. Summary  
         [0017]     The invention is composed of two parts. The first is a car cover with a number of small weights or magnets mounted around the periphery of the cover to hold it in place while deployed, either by the force exerted by the weights or by magnetic attraction to the vehicle body if said body is composed of a metal with a magnetic susceptibility, as is typical of steel alloys. Additionally the car cover has several panels on its underside which can be inserted into the vehicle doors before they are closed or into the vehicle trunk before it is closed, thereby providing additional mechanical stability against wind or theft. Additional side attachments that may be fixed to external rear-view mirrors may also be used for additional mechanical stability. When the car cover is fully deployed it will cover the front, back and all side windows as well as the vehicle top and all or part of the front (hood) and back (trunk) sections of the vehicle body.  
         [0018]     2. Objective of the Invention  
         [0019]     It is the objective of the invention to provide a car cover assembly that can be deployed or removed quickly by one person and stored conveniently in any storage area available in the vehicle. Another objective is to provide a deployment device to hold any flexible material that can be folded to minimize the storage space it requires, with or without the flexible material in place. Another object is to provide a car cover design that allows all windows to be covered and which is held in place by a combination of weights or magnets around the periphery of the cover and provision for being held in place by the doors and the truck of the vehicle, to accomplish stability against the wind and to discourage theft. The objective of the car cover itself is to minimize the buildup of interior heating when a car is parked in the sun, to protect the car against the elements such as interior or exterior damage from natural or artificial light, sap or other secretions from trees or other plans, bird or other animal droppings that might occur when a vehicle is parked under trees or other areas where birds or animals may inhabit, natural or unnatural damaging liquids such as sea spray, paint spray, chemicals that are present in the surrounding environment etc. 
     
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF DRAWINGS  
       [0020]      FIG. 1  is an underside view of the car cover so that the addition attachment panels are shown more clearly and a view of the deployment wand.  
         [0021]      FIG. 2  is a more detailed drawing of the preferred embodiment of the deployment wand showing the internal support rod in the forward open deployment position.  
         [0022]      FIG. 3  is a more detailed drawing of the deployment wand showing the internal support rod in the withdrawn position for folding the deployment wand (closed position).  
         [0023]      FIG. 4  is a topside view of the car cover illustrating an alternative embodiment of the invention.  
         [0024]      FIG. 5  is a view of an alternative embodiment of the deployment wand, referred to as “alternative wand number  1 ”.  FIG. 6  is a view of an alternative embodiment of the deployment wand, referred to as “alternative wand number  2 ”.  
     
    
     REFERENCE NUMBERS IN THE DRAWINGS  
       [0025]    
       
         
               
               
             
           
               
                   
               
               
                   
               
             
             
               
                 10 
                 Magnets or small weights fixed to the periphery of the car cover (as shown, 18) 
               
               
                 12, 
                 Panels fixed to the car cover which may be secured in the driver and passenger side doors 
               
               
                 12′ 
                 and the rear trunk compartment 
               
               
                 14 
                 A plastic or fabric tube added to the back panel to facilitate trapping the rear security 
               
               
                   
                 panel in the vehicle trunk 
               
               
                 16 
                 Velcro ® strips or the like (which will be used to attach the car cover to the deployment 
               
               
                   
                 wand) 
               
               
                 18 
                 The deployment wand (a hollow tube) 
               
               
                 20 
                 Velcro strips or the like, wound onto the wand and which will be used to attach the wand 
               
               
                   
                 to the car cover using the Velcro strips 14 
               
               
                 22 
                 A flexible joining piece between the two parts of the deployment wand, constructed from 
               
               
                   
                 either flexible tubing or a metallic spring or the like, to allow the deployment wand to be 
               
               
                   
                 folded for storage with or without the car cover rolled onto it 
               
               
                 24 
                 A rod constructed from plastic, metal or wood that when forward position prevents the 
               
               
                   
                 deployment wand from bending at the flexible join 22 and facilitates rolling the car cover 
               
               
                   
                 onto or off of the wand. 
               
               
                 26, 
                 A mechanical stop placed into the body of the deployment wand to prevent the rod 24 
               
               
                 26′ 
                 from falling out of the deployment wand 
               
               
                 28 
                 A handle on the tubular deployment wand to facilitate rolling the car cover onto the wand. 
               
               
                   
                 This handle may be removable. 
               
               
                 30 
                 Elastic cord or other attachment to hold the folded wand in the closed position for storage 
               
               
                 32 
                 Fabric or plastic join between the two sheets composing the car cover 
               
               
                 34 
                 Foldable wand including a transverse handle for ease of deployment. This handle may be 
               
               
                   
                 removable. 
               
               
                 36, 
                 Lower section of the foldable wand, with open yoke at the end away from the handle, to 
               
               
                 36′ 
                 accommodate the upper section 
               
               
                 38 
                 Upper section of the foldable wand 
               
               
                 40, 
                 Join between upper and lower sections, which allows rotation of the two pieces between 
               
               
                 40′ 
                 the open and closed position 
               
               
                 42 
                 A pin that joins the upper and lower sections of the wand, such that the two sections can 
               
               
                   
                 be rotated with respect to each other 
               
               
                 44, 
                 Join between the upper and lower part of the foldable wand 
               
               
                 44′ 
               
               
                 46, 
                 Upper section of the foldable wand 
               
               
                 46′ 
               
               
                 48, 
                 Lower section of the foldable wand 
               
               
                 48′ 
               
               
                 50 
                 A pin that joins the upper and lower sections of the wand to the join 44, such that the two 
               
               
                   
                 sections can be rotated into the folded configuration 
               
               
                   
               
             
          
         
       
     
       DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION  
       [0026]     1. Preferred Embodiment  
         [0027]      FIG. 1  shows the car cover which may be constructed from a single sheet of appropriate material (such as Tyvek®, manufactured by DuPont or NOAH® and BLOCK IT® Evolution, both manufactured by Kimberly-Clark). Small magnets or weights  10  are attached to the periphery of the car cover to facilitate deployment and help hold the car cover in place after deployment. Two panels  12  are fixed to the underside of the car cover which may be held in place by the closed driver-side and passenger-side doors for additional stability. An additional panel  12 &#39; at the back of the car cover can be closed inside the trunk of the vehicle for the same purpose. A plastic tube or the like  14  can be fixed to panel  12 &#39; to provide a more convenient hand-hold and to facilitate placing it in the trunk compartment. The use of these panels is discretionary as they provide addition stability and security beyond the use of just the magnets or weights  10 . Two Velcro® strips  16  are fixed to the back of the car cover spaced such that they match up with the Velcro® surfaces  20  on the deployment wand  18 . This allows the car cover to be attached and detached from the deployment wand for deployment or removal of the car cover. Note that the active surfaces of the Velcro® strips  16  are faced away from the viewer of  FIG. 1 , which is an underside view. The T-handle on the deployment wand  18  is used to facilitate rolling the car cover onto the car or rolling up the car cover when it is removed from the car. The deployment wand has a flexible joining member  22  that holds the two halves together and allows the deployment wand to be folded with or without the car cover rolled onto it for storage.  
         [0028]     In the preferred embodiment of this invention the car cover the deployment wand  18  with the car cover rolled onto is placed at the front of the vehicle. For definiteness we will assume that the T-handle of  18  is on the driver&#39;s side of the car. Assuming that the panels  12  were in the down position when the car cover was rolled onto the deployment wand in the orientation then the panels  12  will also be on the underside of the deployed car cover. The front magnets or weights hold the car cover in place as it is unrolled from the deployment wand in the direction of the rear of the vehicle. The car cover will have been folded approximately along the dashed line shown in  FIG. 1  such that the magnets or weights will initially rest on the vehicle roof, also serving to hold the car cover in place during deployment. When the car cover is fully deployed the deployment wand is resting on the vehicle trunk area or hanging loosely in the case of a vehicle without a trunk (e.g. a van or hatchback vehicle). At this point the front and back windows are completely covered. The deployment wand is removed from the Velcro® strips of the car cover and can be folded for storage (see the discussion of folding the deployment wand in  FIG. 3 ). Then at the user&#39;s discretion the panels  12  can be inserted into the vehicle by closing the driver side and passenger side doors on them and panel  12 &#39; can be inserted into the trunk area in a similar way. The remaining portion of the car cover can be unfolded from the car roof in order to cover the side windows of the vehicle. The width of the cover is sufficient that the magnets or weights  10  hang below the windows and will help hold the cover in position to cover all side windows. Thus all windows are covered and depending on the exact size of the cover, much of the vehicle hood and trunk exterior surface is covered.  
         [0029]     Removal of the car cover follows a similar procedure. The deployment wand  18  is configured to the open position (see  FIG. 3  details for how this is accomplished) and attached by the Velcro® strips to the car cover with the T-handle on the driver side of the vehicle. The panels  12  and  12 ′ are removed from the front doors and trunk respectively. The portion of the car cover hanging over the side windows is folded on top of the vehicle, with the magnets or weights holding the cover loosely in place. Starting from the rear of the vehicle, using the T-handle to facilitate rotation of the deployment wand, the car cover is rolled onto the deployment wand while the user walks toward the front of the vehicle. After the car cover is completely rolled onto the deployment wand  18 , the deployment wand is folded (see  FIG. 3 ) and the cover plus deployment wand can be stored in the vehicle or vehicle trunk.  
         [0030]      FIG. 2  shows the tubular deployment wand  18  in the open deployment position. Two pieces of Velcro® or the like  20  are attached to the exterior of the deployment wand with the active surfaces facing outward and spaced such that they match up with the Velcro® strips  16  on the car cover. The wand can be constructed of any suitable light weight tubular material (plastic or metal) and consists of two parts with a flexible join  22  which can be plastic tubing or a spring. The flexible join  22  must be fixed securely to the exterior of the wand and have sufficient interior diameter to allow the support rod  24  to slide through it when the wand is in the open position such that the support rod  24  in the position shown in  FIG. 2 , resting against the forward stop  26 , prevents the deployment wand from bending at the flexible join  22 . This stiffens the deployment wand and greatly facilitates rolling out (deployment) or rolling up (removal) of the car cover. The fact that the flexible join is fixed securely to the deployment wand exterior assures that the two parts of the deployment wand rotate together during deployment or removal of the car cover. The T-handle  28  allows the user to rotate the deployment wand more easily during deployment or removal of the car cover. The T-handle  28  may be fixed permanently to one end of the deployment wand or be removable for additional ease of storage. An elastic cord or the like  30  is used to hold the deployment wand in a closed position for storage.  
         [0031]      FIG. 3  shows the deployment wand  18  configured for folding and storage, with or without the car cover rolled onto it. In doing from the open configuration in  FIG. 2  to the closed and folded position of  FIG. 3  the user would hold the T-handle  28  down and allow the support rod  24  to slide to the lower position, resting against the stop  26 ′. Then the deployment wand can be folded around the flexible join  22  and finally held in place using the elastic cord  30 . To go from the closed and folded configuration to the open one the user releases the elastic cord  30 , straightens the deployment wand and holds the T-handle  28  up, allowing the support rod  24  to pass through the flexible join  22  and come to rest on the stop  26 . This stiffens the deployment wand  18  and facilitates deploying or removing the car cover.  
         [0032]     2. Description of Other Embodiments  
         [0033]      FIG. 4  shows an alternative embodiment of the present invention, to be used in the case that the car cover material is insufficiently flexible to accommodate the folding required for the closed and folded (storage) position. In this case the car cover is composed of two overlapping sheets of material, joined by strips of suitable flexible material at the front, back and several intermediate positions along their length. The fold will occur at the point of the sheet overlap, such that there will be sufficient flexibility for the folding to be accomplished conveniently.  
         [0034]      FIG. 5  is a view of an alternative design for the foldable deployment wand (“alternative wand number  1 ”) including a transverse handle  34 . In this embodiment the lower piece  36  has a open yoke at the end away from the transverse handle into which the upper section  38  can fit with a flexible join  40 . The joining pin  42  and the yoke are sized such that there is a reasonably tight friction fit between the pieces  36  and  38 , so as to impart to the wand some mechanical rigidity when open but not so much friction as to prevent the two pieces to be folded into the closed position. The upper section  38  has an elongated L shape, such that there is room to accommodate the car cover when it is folded onto the deployment wand. This wand has the required Velcro® strips (or the like)  20  to allow it to be attached to the car cover itself.  
         [0035]      FIG. 6  is a view of an alternative design for the foldable deployment wand (“alternative wand number  2 ”) including a transverse handle  34 . In this embodiment the joining piece  44  is an open yoke that will accommodate both the upper  46  and lower section  48  of the foldable wand. The joining pin  50  and the yoke are sized such that there is a reasonably tight friction fit between the pieces  44  and the upper  46  and lower  48  section, so as to impart to the wand some mechanical rigidity when open but not so much friction as to prevent the two pieces to be folded into the closed position. This wand has the required Velcro® strips (or the like)  20  to allow it to be attached to the car cover itself. An elastic band (or the like)  30  is used to hold the wand in the folded position.