Patent ID: 8861714

Claim:
A holder for the stable support, upon a user's shoulder and upon an underlying planar surface in at least two orientations, of a hand-held electronic communication device, comprising: a generally wedge-shaped base that is symmetric about a longitudinal central axis, having an open front, a back, a top, a bottom, and laterally opposite sides; a faceplate, overlying said open front of said base, having a front surface and a longitudinal axis extending between said top and said bottom of said base and a transverse axis extending between said opposite sides of said base; and retaining means for disengageably mounting a thin, flat, generally rectangular hand-held electronic communication device, optionally contained within a case therefor, in position on said faceplate with a longitudinal axis and a transverse axis of the communication device aligned with the longitudinal axis and transverse axis, respectively, of said faceplate; said base having a flat, nonskid back surface thereon constructed for stably supporting said holder both between a user's shoulder and face and also in a freestanding upright state, in a first angular orientation of said faceplate, on an underlying planar surface of a supporting structure, said base having at least one area of indentation, at a level intermediate said front and back and along said top and said opposite sides thereof, dimensioned and configured to enable secure, hand-held manual gripping of said holder; said faceplate and said flat back surface of said base lying on planes that intersect at a first angle, having a value of about 25 to 30 degrees, so as to dispose said faceplate at said first angle relative to such an underlying planar surface, and with said transverse axis of said faceplate parallel to the underlying surface, in portrait orientation, when said base is so supported thereon by said nonskid back surface; said holder also having a multiplicity of supporting contact elements thereon for stably supporting said holder in at least one freestanding upright state on such an underlying planar surface, a first plurality of at least three of said contact elements lying on a common plane, on one side of said base, that intersects the plane of said faceplate at a second angle, having a value of about 60 to 75 degrees, so as to dispose said faceplate at said second angle, relative to such an underlying planar surface and with said longitudinal axis of said faceplate parallel to the underlying surface, in a first landscape orientation, when said base is so supported by said first plurality of said contact elements, said first landscape orientation being rotated 90° from said portrait orientation; and said holder being so constructed as to permit the projection therefrom of sound produced by an electronic communication device so mounted by said retaining means.