Patent ID: 8904915

Claim:
A thermally vented body armor system, comprising: a plurality of thermally vented armor (TVA) panels, each TVA panel including a plurality of protective cards which, when worn by a standing user, are rotated about parallel, substantially horizontal rotational axes at a common angle and arranged in a single layer of uniformly distributed, spaced apart, mutually parallel, louvered protective cards that permits airflow between the protective cards while providing an overlapping barrier against projectile strikes in a direction normal to the protective cards, each protective card being substantially rigid over most of its area, the protective cards being separated over their entire areas by a distance that is greater than or equal to their thickness when the TVA panel is not flexed or compressed; and an inner mesh layer and an outer mesh layer, the inner and outer mesh layers having open-weave patterns that permit airflow therethrough, the TVA panels being located between the inner and outer mesh layers; the plurality of TVA panels being assembled in substantially fixed, adjoining, relationships so as to form a protecting garment which can provide protection to a portion of a user's body against projectile penetration, TVA panels which are adjacent in a direction perpendicular to the rotational axes being positioned so as to substantially continue the louvered relationship of the protective cards.