Abstract:
The invention is a sunscreen that deploys a flexible screen by feeding a compressible member into a channel constructed into the perimeter of a screen, such that the screen then unfurls into an appropriate vehicle dash sunscreen. For storage, the member is retracted from the channel, but as the end of the member is affixed to the device, its retraction necessarily closes the screen from its open position to the compressed storage position.

Description:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention relates to devices and methods of shielding cars from excessive sunlight. 
     BACKGROUND 
     Every owner of a vehicle with a windshield has learned that their vehicle&#39;s dashboard will be damaged over time by the sun&#39;s rays. In addition, vehicles tend to heat in the summer, not only by the ambient heat, but by the sunlight shining into a windshield, which is generally constructed to be a more acute angle than other windows of a car so as to reduce wind resistance. 
     The auto industry has developed many ways of attempting to mitigate this damage, including the tinting of vehicle windows, sunshades placed on the windshield while a car is not in use, and even mechanical shades. However, most of these approaches only work on the back window, where mechanical shades are employed on nicer vehicles), or on side windows, where tinting is less regulated. 
     Many states regulate the allowable tint on a windshield, and the market has not yet seen a vehicle with the roll up screen on a front window, as the front windshield is curved more than the back on most cars, and visibility is necessarily harmed by the semi-opaque screens found on back windshields. 
     The most common solution used by vehicle owners is an inexpensive sun shield that folds in an accordion style for storage, as described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,652,039 to Richards. These folding sun shields are typically made of a cardboard or other rigid lightweight material, and offered in a few basic sizes, or alternatively, shaped to fit specific vehicles so they more easily are held in place between the crevice created between the windshield and front dash at the bottom, and at the top by a vehicle&#39;s rear view mirror and pull-down sun visors. More rarely, this type of sun shield is constructed to roll up for storage. 
     In recent years, the market has enjoyed the widespread use of collapsible compressible structures in which a spring-effect maintains pressure on the shade to remain open, as disclosed in Zheng&#39;s U.S. Pat. No. 4,815,784. These collapsible screens are generally stored by folding them using a precise process as described in Zheng. When folded, these collapsible units must be held in the folded position or they naturally unfold. Many people never able to learn the manually looping technique needed to fold and store these screens in their smaller stored position, but rather simply throw the screen into the vehicle&#39;s back seat. 
     Other inventors have attempted to address this common problem with many approaches, including: a) the retracting sun visor descried in U.S. Pat. No. 7,216,917 by Tadakamalla; b) the dual-pillar assembly of U.S. Pat. No. 9,039,064 in which screens scroll out from the sides of the windshield and are pulled together; c) an automated screen disclosed by Chen in U.S. Pat. No. 9,079,479, in which a suction-cup installed on windshields using a rigid part and a removable flexible section is available by the user; d) magnetically affixing the screen in place by attraction to the vehicle frame, disclosed by Middleton in U.S. Pat. No. 8,556,328; e) screens held in place by an unfolding frame, revealed by Chai in U.S. Pat. No. 6,904,923, Huang in U.S. Pat. No. 6,705,381, and Mitchell in U.S. Pat. No. 6,095,230, among others; and f) an air-actuated curtain in U.S. Pat. No. 5,085,473. 
     The disclosures of the above-referenced patents are herein incorporated by reference in full to this specification. 
     While each of the above-referenced patents and approaches have their place, there remains yet a need to have a simple, collapsible screen that may be more compact and simple to use, which this specification intends to disclose. 
     This background information is provided to reveal information believed by the applicant to be of possible relevance to the present invention. No admission is intended, nor should be construed, that any of the preceding information constitutes prior art against the present invention. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     With the above in mind, embodiments of the present invention are related to a sunscreen and method of use, in which a user deploys a flexible screen by feeding a compressible member into a channel constructed into the perimeter of the screen, such that the screen then unfurls into an open position that the user can use for a vehicle sun screen. For storage, the member is retracted from the channel, but as the end of the member is affixed to the device, its retraction necessarily closes the screen from its open position to the compressed storage position. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a front view of the sunscreen in its open position and a transparent retractor front using a motor in the reactor. 
         FIG. 2  is a front view of the sunscreen of  FIG. 1  in a partially closed position. 
         FIG. 3  is a front view of the sunscreen of  FIG. 1  in its closed position. 
         FIG. 4  shows an orthogonal view of a second embodiment of a retractor using a crank to operate the retractor. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     The present invention will now be described more fully hereinafter with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which preferred embodiments of the invention are shown. This invention may, however, be embodied in many different forms and should not be construed as limited to the embodiments set forth herein. Rather, these embodiments are provided so that this disclosure will be thorough and complete, and will fully convey the scope of the invention to those skilled in the art. Those of ordinary skill in the art realize that the following descriptions of the embodiments of the present invention are illustrative and are not intended to be limiting in any way. Other embodiments of the present invention will readily suggest themselves to such skilled persons having the benefit of this disclosure. Like numbers refer to like elements throughout. 
     Although the following detailed description contains many specifics for the purposes of illustration, anyone of ordinary skill in the art will appreciate that many variations and alterations to the following details are within the scope of the invention. Accordingly, the following embodiments of the invention are set forth without any loss of generality to, and without imposing limitations upon, the claimed invention. 
     In this detailed description of the present invention, a person skilled in the art should note that directional terms, such as “above,” “below,” “upper,” “lower,” and other like terms are used for the convenience of the reader in reference to the drawings. Also, a person skilled in the art should notice this description may contain other terminology to convey position, orientation, and direction without departing from the principles of the present invention. 
     Furthermore, in this detailed description, a person skilled in the art should note that quantitative qualifying terms such as “generally,” “substantially,” “mostly,” and other terms are used, in general, to mean that the referred to object, characteristic, or quality constitutes a majority of the subject of the reference. The meaning of any of these terms is dependent upon the context within which it is used, and the meaning may be expressly modified. 
     Referring now to  FIGS. 1-4 , a device, according to an embodiment of the present invention disclosed is a Windshield Sunscreen  11 , comprising a Screen  13 , a compressible Member  15 , and a Retractor  17 . 
     The Windshield Sunscreen  11  is intended to be in one of two general positions, which include the open position as seen in  FIG. 1 , or closed as shown in  FIG. 3 .  FIG. 2  shows a partially open position of Screen  13  for explanatory purposes. 
     The Windshield Sunscreen  11  is employed as a sunscreen while in the open position, and stored in the closed position. 
     To simplify and for ease of understanding, the embodiment used in  FIG. 1  through  FIG. 3  shows a transparent Retractor  17  using a Motor  33  to provide the torque necessary to retract and expand the Member  15 . Note that the Motor  33  and optional Gearbox are show in hidden lines of  FIGS. 1-3 . 
     The Screen  13  is held either open or closed by the compressible Member  15 , which travels through a Channel  19  that is constructed along the perimeter of the Screen  13 . In the current embodiment the Channel  19  is a hemmed passage of the same material as the Screen  13 . The Channel  19  is constructed to match the size of the Member  15  so that the Member  15  cannot double-back on itself, but when pushed through the Channel  19 , will extend through the Channel  19 . 
     The Member  15  is constructed as a compressible elastic component resisting deformity from its original straight construction, but not so rigid that it cannot be wound on the Spool  29 . As the Member  15  is extended through the curved Channel  19 , the Member pushes against the curvature of the Channel  19 , pressuring the Screen  13  to adopt the shape created by the Channel when the Screen  13  is laid flat. The Member  15  in the Channel  19  creates a radial tension useful for keeping the Sunscreen  11  against the groove between the windshield and windshield frame when in use. 
     As shown in  FIG. 1-3 , the Retractor  17  further comprises a Compartment  21  into which two anchor points are constructed. The First Anchor Point  23  is a holding ring mounted into the Compartment  21 , to which one end of the Member  15  can be attached. The second Anchor Point  25  is attached to a Spool  29  in the Reel  27  that is also part of the Retractor, so when the Reel  27  is operated, the Spool  29  is rotated to release or retract the Member  15  from the Reel  27 , as measured from the First Anchor Point  23  and along the Member  15  to the entrance of the Retractor  17 . 
     A user can therefore prepare the Windshield Sunscreen  11  for use in a vehicle by operating the Retractor  17 , so the Spool  29  is rotated within the Reel  27  and the length of the Member  15  is increased, and as more of the Member  15  is extended through the Channel  19  in the Screen  13 , and the expanding loop created by the extended Member  15  necessarily unfurls the Windshield Sunscreen  11  to the open position. 
     To close the Windshield Sunscreen  11 , the user operates the Retractor  17  to withdraw the Member  15  back into the Retractor  17 , which collapses the Screen  13  along the path of the Member  15  and pulling the Screen  13  into the Compartment  21  of the Retractor  17 , as seen on  FIG. 3 . 
     Once the Sunscreen  11  is fully retracted into the Retractor  17 , the user can treat it as a folded umbrella, tossed in the floor of the vehicle or a side pocket of the door, or mounted to the dashboard. 
     The Retractor  17  includes a Compartment Opening  37  along the side of the Retractor so the Screen  13  can expand out as the Member is extended. This open section is indicated on  FIG. 3  by the thinner line along the left and top walls, and more clearly indicated in  FIG. 4 , showing the Reactor  17  with Crank  31  option. 
     The Retractor  17  can be constructed in a number of ways. In the construction shown in  FIG. 1-3 , the Retractor  17  includes the Compartment  21  on one side, and the Reel  27 . The Reel  27  comprises the Spool  29  and a means of turning the Spool  29  is a Motor  33 . 
       FIG. 4  shows a construction using a Crank  31  that can be turned by a user to wind and unwind the Member  15  from the Spool  29 . 
     An additional option is to construct the Motor  33  so it includes a Gearbox  35  to allow the motor to be smaller, and has the added advantage that the force of the Member  15  while wound on the Spool  29  would not be able to exert pressure to unwind from the Reel  27  because the Gearbox  35  would prevent Spool  29  movement without the Motor  33  turning the Gearbox  35 , because gearboxes can easily be built to be difficult to turn from pressure on the output shaft. 
     This disclosure is not intended to exhaust the variations of every kind of method by which the Member  15  is extended and retracted through the Channel  19  or the shape of the Screen  13 , irrespective of the shape shown in the figures. 
     While the invention has been described with reference to exemplary embodiments, it will be understood by those skilled in the art that various changes may be made and equivalents may be substituted for elements thereof without departing from the scope of the invention. 
     A legend of the components discussed in the application and shown on the drawings is as follows: 
     
       
         
               
               
               
             
           
               
                   
                   
               
             
             
               
                   
                 11 Windshield Sunscreen 
                 25 Second Anchor Point 
               
               
                   
                 13 Screen 
                 27 Reel 
               
               
                   
                 15 Member 
                 29 Spool 
               
               
                   
                 17 Retractor 
                 31 Crank 
               
               
                   
                 19 Channel 
                 33 Motor 
               
               
                   
                 21 Compartment 
                 35 Gearbox 
               
               
                   
                 23 First Anchor Point 
                 37 Compartment Opening