Patent ID: 6966852

Claim:
A modular sports net assembly of the type forming an enclosure and used for receiving and retaining a sports item, such as a ball or the like, wherein the assembly is assembled for deployment as a prism of varying shapes and sizes on any relatively flat ground surface and disassembled for storage, the assembly comprising: a tubular interfitting frame having the shape of a polyhedron having two polygon sides in parallel planes and two sides formed in the shape of parallelograms formed from a plurality of intermediate tubular pole segments, at least a portion of the intermediate tubular pole segments interconnecting a plurality of corner units to form a plurality of orthogonal edge peripheries, the corner units including projecting pole receiving portions extending along at least three independent axes, each pole receiving portion receiving an end of the at least a portion of the intermediate tubular pole segments, wherein the frame defines at least three interconnected planes; and a plurality of planar netting panels removably attached to one of the edge peripheries of the frame so as to enclose the frame, except for at least one side plane when the frame assembled is deployed on the relatively flat ground surface, wherein the at least a portion of the intermediate tubular pole segments interconnecting the plurality of corner units comprise a plurality of articulating and interlocking portions having cooperating first and second mating ends, where an interior diameter of the first mating end is larger than an exterior diameter of the second mating end and receives the second mating end therein to positively connect the articulating and interlocking portions, and wherein a stretchable connecting cable interconnects at least two of the articulating and interlocking portions of the at least a portion of the intermediate tubular pole segments, the connecting cable including a first wire segment at each end thereof, the first wire segments including buttons located at opposite ends and positioned within two different ones of the articulating and interlocking portions, where the buttons protrude through apertures in the two different ones of the articulating and interlocking portions to positively connect the at least two of the articulating and interlocking portions together.