Abstract:
A combined, flexible and floppy laundry, travel, storage/display bag structure for socks and like small clothing articles, including (a) a machine-launderable/dryable, open-mesh, fabric bag having front and back sides, and spaced top, bottom and lateral edges, (b) located intermediate the bag&#39;s top and bottom edges, an elongate openable/closeable closure structure joined to and extending laterally across the bag&#39;s front side and between its lateral edges, and furnishing user-selective access to the inside of the bag, and (c) plural, releasable, clothing-article-holding structures mounted inside the bag on its back side, made manually accessible, via the closure structure, for operative gripping and releasing, within the bag, of user-selected clothing articles.

Description:
CROSS REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATION 
     This application claims priority to currently co-pending U.S. Provisional Patent Application Ser. No. 61/369,681, filed Jul. 31, 2010, for “Multi-Purpose, Small-Garment Bag Structure”. The entire content of this provisional application is hereby incorporated herein by reference. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND AND SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     This invention pertains to a multi-purpose, small-garment bag structure, and more particularly, to such a structure which may be used in singular, or co-attached plural-bag, forms, to furnish useful, convenient organizational handling and management control for various small, personal garments such as socks and underwear. The utility of this structure presents itself especially well in laundering, post-laundering drying, at-home storing, and traveling situations, as will become apparent. 
     The proposed bag structure (or bag), for and in these various settings, offers a number of combinational functionalities including, as illustrations, (a) receiving small garments, such as socks and underwear, and containing them neatly organized for machine (or hand) laundering as well as for machine (or non-machine) drying, (b) holding dried, laundered garments within the bag for storage, (c) collecting dirtied garments in preparation for laundering, (d) hanging garments within the bag structure on an otherwise conventional clothing hanger for pre-use storage display (or for other reasons), etc., if desired (as in a closet), and (e) containing “bagged” garments for travel purposes. The bag structure of the invention includes appropriate, releasably interengageable interconnection structures, such as matable zipper structures, adjacent opposite top and bottom edges enabling roll-folding, and holding of the bag structure in a roll-folded condition for, as an example, garment-contained compactness in a travel situation. 
     To meet these purposes, and to offer these features, the basic bag structure of the invention includes a principal bag formed of, for example, an open-mesh nylon fabric, such as the material known as laundry mesh, having front and back sides, and including an openable/closable closure structure, such as a regular zipper structure, extending laterally generally centrally across the front side of the bag. This central, lateral zipper structure furnishes access to the bag&#39;s inside, wherein reinforcing-band-anchored (and thus basically positionally stabilized), clothing-article-holding clips, such as alligator-like clips, are furnished, pivotally mounted, in laterally extending rows (preferably, though not necessarily, two rows) for the purpose of gripping and selectively releasing small garments for containment in and retraction from the bag. The reinforcing band mentioned may be formed of the material known as belting tape. The laterally extending openable/closable closure structure provided for access to the inside of the bag is conveniently located positionally adjacent the locations of the preferred two rows of clips. The clips preferably are pivotally mounted on the mentioned reinforcing band material, with the pivot axes for these clips being substantially normal to the “plane” of the bag under circumstances wherein the bag&#39;s confronting front and back sides are in conditions essentially flattened adjacent each other. 
     The mentioned zipper structures that are disposed adjacent the top and bottom edges of the bag, made, for example from what is known as “matable”, separating zipper structures, enable plural bag structures to be connected for various purposes and conditions, such in a “vertical stack” for collective hanging as a plural-bag-structure unit, or for other reasons. 
     The upper edge of the proposed bag is reinforced with the same belting-type material mentioned above. Additionally, provided laterally centrally in this upper edge is a small access opening allowing for the passage of the hanging hook of a conventional clothing hanger whose main body may be disposed within the top of the bag to hold it and its contents for hanging purposes. 
     These and other features of the invention will become more fully apparent as the detailed description of it which now follows is read in conjunction with the accompanying drawings. 
    
    
     
       DESCRIPTIONS OF THE DRAWINGS 
         FIG. 1  is a top, frontal isometric view of a single bag structure made in accordance with the present invention. A portion of the front of this structure has been broken away in order to illustrate details of internal construction. 
         FIG. 2 , which has been drawn on a slightly larger scale than that employed in  FIG. 1 , is a front elevation of the bag of  FIG. 1 , here, also, with a portion broken away to illustrate internal construction. 
         FIG. 3  presents a reduced-scale view of an assembly of three bag structures, each having the construction illustrated in  FIGS. 1 and 2 , zipped together, top-edge to bottom-edge, for storage-hanging purposes. The upper bag is shown associated with a conventional clothing hanger to enable hanging of the bag assembly for storage purposes, as in a closet. Selected portions of the bags illustrated in this figure have been shown only fragmentarily in order to illustrate details of construction. 
         FIG. 4  is a simplified cross section taken generally along the line  4 - 4  in  FIG. 3 , and drawn on a scale which is slightly larger than that employed in  FIG. 3 . 
         FIG. 5 , which has been drawn on about the same scale as that employed in  FIG. 4 , illustrates the bag pictured in the  FIG. 4  roll-folded upon itself, and retained in that condition by engaged, complementary components which form parts in an included matable zipper structure. These zipper structure components are provided adjacent the upper and lower edges of the bag. 
     
    
    
     DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE INVENTION 
     Turning attention now to the drawings, and referring first of all to  FIGS. 1 ,  2  and  4 , indicated generally at  10  is a combined laundry, travel, storage/display bag structure made in accordance with a preferred and best-mode embodiment of the present invention. Bag structure  10 , which, generally speaking, is floppy and flexible in nature, includes, as its main body, an open-mesh, fabric bag  12  formed in any suitable fashion of a conventional machine-washable, machine-dryable, nylon laundry-mesh material. The bag illustrated herein is shaped generally in the form of an elongate rectangle, having a width W of about 18-inches between its lateral edges  12   a ,  12   b , and a top-to-bottom height H of about 24-inches between its upper (or top) edge  12   c  and its bottom edge  12   d . Bag  12  has front and back sides  12   e ,  12   f , respectively, an inside  12   g  (seen especially well through a break-away opening in front side  12   e  in  FIGS. 1 and 2  marked by a dash-double-dot line  14 ), and a nominal flattened condition, which is generally seen in the edge-view of it presented in  FIG. 4 , in which condition the bag can be thought of as occupying a plane, such as that shown for it by a dash-dot line  12 A in  FIG. 4 . 
     The dimensions just stated are convenient and practical for most applications, but not in any sense critical. 
     At four locations in the bag structure pictured there are provided vertically spaced, laterally extending, narrow, reinforcing strips  16 ,  18 ,  20 ,  22  formed preferably of the conventional fabric material known as belting tape. 
     Attached across the bag&#39;s top edge  12   c , immediately above reinforcing strip  16 , is one complementary side  24   a  of a conventional matable zipper structure  24 , the other complementary side,  24   b , of which is attached across the bag&#39;s bottom edge  12   d . The functions of zipper sides, or components,  24   a ,  24   b  will be explained shortly in relation to  FIGS. 3 and 5 . Components  24   a ,  24   b  are referred to collectively herein as selectively matable, releasably and complementarily interengageable, interconnection structures. 
     Openable and closeable access to the inside  12   g  of bag  12  is provided through a substantially full-width, laterally extending separation existing between upper and lower portions of the mesh fabric which forms front side  12   e , and by operation of an appropriately there attached, conventional, regular zipper, or openable/closable closure structure,  26  which is disposed generally centrally between the top and bottom edges of the bag. This access feature, by way of which small garments are passed into and out of the bag during use, is located preferably, though not necessarily, about midway between the top and bottom edges of the bag. 
     Another, relatively small, somewhat slit-like opening into bag  12  is furnished laterally centrally at  28  adjacent the top edge of the bag, immediately above reinforcing strip  16  (as seen in  FIG. 1 ). This opening is also referred to herein as a clothing-hanger hook-passage access opening, for a reason which will become immediately apparent from a look at  FIG. 3 . More will be said shortly about this structure. 
     Suitably pivotally attached to each of previously mentioned material strips  18 ,  20 , at five locations on each strip, and spaced laterally along these strips, are five each, conventionally available, alligator-like clips, such as clips  30 , which can pivot, or rotate, about axes, such as those shown  30   a . Clips  30  are also referred to herein as plural, clothing-article holding structures. 
     Turning attention now to  FIGS. 3 and 5  in conjunction with the other drawing figures, one will notice that, with respect to the specific locations illustrated for the alligator clips, these clips are conveniently positioned generally centrally (relative to the top and bottom of the bag) near the bag&#39;s front opening to furnish easy and direct access for the attachment and detachment of small garments, such as the two pairs of socks that are shown in  FIG. 3 , for example, clipped inside the upper one of the three zipper-attached bags pictured in this figure. An upper pair of socks  32  is shown clipped into place, and dangling by gravity, by one of the alligator clips attached to material strip  18 , and another, similar pair of socks  34  is shown likewise clipped into place, and likewise dangling by gravity, by one of the alligator clips attached to material strip  20 . 
     With regard to typical use of but a single bag made in accordance with the present invention, small garments, such as socks, like socks  32 ,  34 , underwear, and other kinds of pieces (not specifically shown), in a ready-to-wash condition, are put into place and clipped within the bag which has been opened by manipulation of zipper  26  for that purpose (see broad, double-headed arrow  35  in  FIG. 3 ). The bag is then re-closed, and the entire assemblage of bag and held garments is placed in a washing machine, or otherwise placed for hand laundering, in a condition where the held garments are retained in place, and neatly organized, during this process. Pairs of socks, for example, are kept together, and all garments in a bag may have been placed there for identification convenience on a person-specific basis. 
     When washing is completed, the bag and held-garments assemblage may then typically either be placed in a dryer, or alternatively, hung for air drying by using a conventional clothing hanger, such as the hanger which is illustrated at  36  in  FIG. 3 . When such a hanger is employed, its main body is disposed inside and near the top of the bag as shown, with the stem, or neck, of the hook in the hanger, such as that of the hook shown at  36   a , extending upwardly through previously mentioned bag opening  28 . 
     When the held garments are dry and ready for use, they may either be easily removed from the bag for conventional storage, or they may simply be stored and held in place inside the receiving bag, with the bag either hung for storage and display of the held garments as pictured in  FIG. 3 , or perhaps stored on a shelf or in a drawer in an otherwise conventional manner except that the held garments are bag-retained in a separated and easily identified manner. 
     Garments which are held in a bag and which are clean and ready (inside the bag) for storage, may readily be packed for travel in a very convenient manner. 
     At any point during the washing, drying and storing procedures just described, it is possible for a single bag, if desired, to be rolled and folded upon itself, as indicated in  FIG. 5 , and held in this condition simply by connecting the complementary components  24   a ,  24   b  in the associated matable zipper structure  24 . 
     Another very convenient and sometimes useful manner of employing a bag of the present invention is illustrated effectively by what is shown in  FIG. 3 , where a plurality of bags becomes unified in a chain of bags through inter-bag connections of the matable zipper components. Such a chain of bags may also be rolled upon itself in the same manner illustrated for the single bag in  FIG. 5 . 
     The fact that attachment and support for bag-held garments is furnished through clips which are pivotally mounted, as explained, results in garments, particularly during storage and/or display after washing, neatly self-organizing because of the fact that they tend to dangle by gravity as pictured for the two pairs of socks shown in  FIG. 3 . 
     Accordingly, a unique, multi-function, combined laundry, travel, storage/display bag structure has been illustrated and described herein. Numerous features of the proposed bag structure have been discussed and are quite evident, but I recognize that other features and advantages are also available, and may be discovered by those generally skilled in the art. Accordingly, it is my intention that all claims to invention will be read to incorporate such additional features and advantages.