Patent ID: 7185694

Claim:
A sunshade for a vehicle, comprising: a housing; first mounting means for mounting said housing on a vehicle window; a drum member, rotatably mounted with respect to said housing; a flexible, weblike shade element, said shade element being positioned so as to be wrapable about said drum member; and a retraction mechanism for enabling said shade element to be moved from a first, fully retracted position wherein most of said shade element is wrapped about said drum member and a second, extended position wherein said shade element is at least partially unwrapped from said drum member, said retraction mechanism comprising: a biasing mechanism for biasing said drum member so that said shade element is urged toward said first, retracted position, and an arresting mechanism, said arresting mechanism being constructed and arranged so as to permit said drum member to be stopped when said shade element is in said second, extended position and in any of a plurality of predetermined intermediate positions that are between said first, fully retracted position and said second, extended position, said arresting mechanism further comprising controlled retraction structure for permitting a consumer to partially retract said shade element by a controlled predetermined distance; whereby said weblike shade element may be utilized in more than one position wherein it is not being actively biased toward the retracted position.