Abstract:
A wire rack provides a point of purchase structure for displaying product. The product hangs from a plurality spaced parallel pairs of arms distributed along the length of the structure. The arrangement of arms and product enables the product to be stocked on or removed from the rack in any order without disturbing the remaining products on the rack. The rack may be temporarily and removably attached to a permanent structure so that a merchant may have feature sales. In a preferred embodiment, the structure may be a freezer or refrigerator and the rack may be hung over the top of a door of the freezer or refrigerator. Suction cups may be used to stabilize the position of the hanging rack or to completely support the rack when it cannot hang from a supporting structure.

Description:
This invention relates to hanging racks especially—although not exclusively—for use in grocery stores, pharmacies, and the like, and more particularly to racks which may be quickly placed in position and then loaded and unloaded without either disturbing other objects on the rack or unbalancing on the rack. 
     BACKGROUND 
     There are many reasons why hanging racks are used in grocery stores and the like. They may add storage at point of purchase locations when all conventional space is filled. They provide an attention getting feature which helps sell certain products, especially those products which are purchased on impulse. They enable a merchant to have feature sales. 
     It is desirable that such hanging racks can be installed in many different locations with little effort and that they may be stocked quickly and at a minimum cost. Further, the customer should be able to remove the product from the rack with minimum effort. After the customer has removed a product, the remaining stock on the rack should not shift and the rack should be as secure as it was when it was originally stocked. Also, the rack should continue to be in balance regardless of how much product has been removed from or added to the rack and regardless of where on the rack the customer may decide to remove a product. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     In keeping with an aspect of the invention, an elongated wire rack is designed to hang vertically with a series of holder/shelves for receiving product. In one embodiment, the wire rack is designed to hang over the top edge of a support such as the door of a freezer or refrigerator, a section of a shelf, or the like. In another embodiment, the wire rack may be attached to any suitable and flat surface by suction cups. The holder/shelves have a pair of arms which receive between them the neck of a soft drink bottle. The cap or a collar portion of the neck of the bottle has a diameter which is greater than the space between the arms, so that the bottle hangs from the holder. 
    
    
     BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
     The invention will be best understood from the following description with the attached drawings, in which: 
     FIG. 1 pictorially shows a prior art hanging rack subject to shortcomings solved by the invention; 
     FIG. 2 pictorially illustrates the inventive hanging rack; 
     FIG. 3 schematically shows the inventive rack hanging on the door of a refrigerator or freezer, by way of example; 
     FIG. 4 is a perspective view of a first embodiment of an inventive rack; 
     FIG. 5 is a front elevation of the rack of FIG. 4; 
     FIG. 6 is a side elevation of the rack of FIG. 4; 
     FIG. 7 is a perspective view of a single holder/ shelf; 
     FIG. 8 is an end elevation view taken along line  8 — 8  of FIG.  7  and showing an anchor part of the holder/shelf; 
     FIG. 9 is a side view of a holder/shelf taken along line  9 — 9  of FIG. 7; 
     FIG. 10 is a plan view of a holder/shelf; 
     FIG. 11 shows a detail of a holder/shelf (see A in FIG. 5) attached to vertical wires of the wire rack; 
     FIG. 12 is a perspective view of a second embodiment of the inventive hanging rack with the capacity for storing twice as much product as the embodiment of FIG. 4; 
     FIG. 13 is a perspective-view of a holder/shelf of the embodiment of FIG. 12; 
     FIG. 14 is an end elevation view taken along line  14 — 14  of FIG. 13, and showing an anchor part for the holder/shelf; 
     FIG. 15 is a side elevation of the holder/shelf taken along line  15 — 15  of FIG. 13; and 
     FIG. 16 is a plan view of the holder/shelf of FIG.  13 . 
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     FIG. 1 pictorially shows a grocery store freezer, by way of example. In this example, the freezer contains ice cream which might be sold with toppings which may be used to make sundaes. Ice cream is the kind of an item that a customer will search out to purchase. The topping is the kind of a product which will more likely be purchased if the customer finds it near the point of purchase of the ice cream. On the other hand the topping does not require freezing; therefore it would be needlessly expensive to store it in the freezer. 
     To place the toppings near the ice cream, a prior art hanging wire rack is hung over the top edge of the freezer door. The rack has a number of shelves  12  arranged on vertical wires, much as the rungs of a ladder are arranged on its side rails. As shown, each shelf of this prior art rack carries two jars. There is almost no vertical clearance between jars on successive shelves. Therefore, it is necessary to load the shelves beginning at the bottom and continuing upwardly toward the top. Likewise, it is necessary to remove the jars from the top down. 
     As here shown, a customer has removed the jar next to jar  14 . This means that the next customer has the option of removing either jar  14  or jar  16 . If jar  14  is removed, the hanging wire rack remains in balance. If jar  16  is removed, there are two extra jars on the right, as compared to the number of jars on the left of the rack. If enough jars are removed from one side of the rack, the prior art rack of FIG. 1 may be seriously out of balance. Also, with two jars on each shelf, they tend to support each other; however, if enough jars are standing alone on a shelf, there are destabilizing vacancies on a number of shelves as the jars slide back and forth on the shelves. Hence, they might fall off the shelf, especially if the imbalance of the prior art rack causes it to tilt. 
     FIG. 2 pictorially shows one embodiment of the inventive wire rack  18 , which is a ladder-like structure hanging over the top edge of a freezer door. The rack may be made All of any suitable material; however, low carbon steel is preferred. Here, the showing is of a freezer filled with frozen dinners which customers will likely seek out. The rack  18  stocks  2 -liter bottles  20  of soft drinks, since it is likely that a customer looking for frozen dinners will buy a soft drink if it is displayed at the point of purchase of the frozen dinners. 
     One important difference between the prior art and the inventive hanging racks is that the stock person can load the inventive rack in any order, beginning at the top, at the bottom, or in the middle. The same is true of the customer who may select and remove product from any place on the rack without creating either an unbalance of the rack or a destabilizing vacancy in the rack. 
     Of course, the foregoing examples of ice cream, toppings, frozen dinners and soft drinks are merely illustrative of how the invention may be used. There are many other uses for the inventive racks. For example, a section of shelves may be completely full of product at a time when it is convenient to add new products which would cause a massive amount of effort to relocate previously shelved products in order to put the new product in a logical place. Or, a merchant may want to have a featured sale of a product. 
     FIG. 3 schematically shows the inventive rack in place on a refrigerator/freezer  22  having a door  24 . An elastomer gasket surrounds the opening and seals the space between the door and the cabinet of the refrigerator/freezer, as shown at the top and bottom  26 ,  28  of the door. 
     The inventive wire rack  18  has its top end bent at  30  to fit over and embrace the top edge  32  of door  24  so that the rack is installed by simply hanging it over the top edge. A small portion of the tip end  34  of bent portion  30  is captured by the elastomer of the gasket  28  in order to stabilize the position of the rack. While there is a small amount of localized distortion of the gasket at the tip end  34 , the distortion is not so great as to interfere with the gasket&#39;s primary purpose of sealing the door to the cabinet. 
     As shown in FIG. 3, there are four holder/shelves  36 , each having an outstanding pair of arms for receiving the underside of a protruding cap or collar on the necks of each of the soft drink bottles. 
     A first embodiment of the inventive wire rack  18  is seen in FIGS. 4-6, as including two vertical wires  38 ,  40  providing side rails supporting four holder/shelves  36  thereon. The holder/shelves are attached to the vertical wires in a space parallel relationship in order to form a ladder-like structure. Attachment is preferably by spot welding. 
     The holder/shelves, themselves, are shown in FIGS. 7-10. More particularly, each holder/shelf is a continuous piece of wire bent to form two bights which are projecting arms  42 ,  44 . Each arm has a straight section extending from an anchoring part  49  to tip ends  50 ,  52 . From the tip ends, the wire is formed into a bight  54  defining a cove  56  having a width which easily receives the collar  57  (FIG. 2) on the neck of a 2-liter soft drink bottle, and which is too small to allow it to slip through the edges of the cove. Thus, when the neck of a bottle is slipped into the cove  56 , the bottle hangs because the diameter of the collar is greater than the width of the cove. 
     The tip ends  50 ,  52  of the arms  42 ,  44  are bent upwardly as shown at  53  in FIG. 9 in order to prevent the bottles from accidentally slipping off the ends of the arms, especially as the freezer door  24  opens and closes. 
     The anchoring part  49  of the holder/shelf is seen in FIG.  8 . Essentially, there is an elongated part  58  made of wire and having its opposite ends  60 ,  62  bent back upon themselves to provide a pair of wide parts, for vertical stability, which may be spot welded to side rails  38 ,  40 . FIG. 11 illustrates detail A in FIG.  5  and shows one such holder/shelf, which is welded to the bottom of the vertical rails  38 ,  40 . 
     Finally, one of the bent back ends  60  of the anchor part  49  terminates in a loop  64  dimensioned to securely receive a suction cup (not shown) that may be pressed against the glass of the freezer door in order to secure the rack in position. For the example given here where the wire frame holds four 2-liter bottles, two (seven pound pull) suction cups at  66  and  68  (FIGS. 5 and 11) provide an adequate anchoring. 
     Also, as shown in FIG. 5, each of the four holding shelves has a loop  64  so that up to four suction cups may be mounted on the rack, which is enough to support it when there is no top edge of a door, or the like, for part  30  to hang over or, when there is no hanger, as in the embodiment shown in FIG.  12 . 
     A second embodiment of the invention is seen in FIGS. 12-16. The side rails  80 ,  82  form a continuous loop  84 . Again, the holder/shelves  86  are spot welded to the side rails  80 ,  82  of loop  84 . 
     The difference between the first and second embodiments is that the arms  88 ,  90  are longer than the corresponding arms  42 ,  44  in the first embodiment. Therefore, each cove  92  is longer than the cove  56  in the first embodiment. Accordingly, a plurality of bottles may be inserted into each of the cove  92 . In the preferred arrangement of the second embodiment, the cove  92  is long enough to receive and support two 2-liter bottles. In this two bottle size, the wire rack may be mounted and secured by eight 7-pound suction cups which may be attached to frame  84  at its top  94  or, preferably along arms  96  at  98  of each of the holder/shelves in any suitable manner. 
     While the foregoing description has given specific examples, it should be understood that those who are skilled in the art may perceive various modifications thereof. Therefore, the appended claims are to be construed to include all equivalent structures that fall within the scope and spirit of the invention.