Patent Document

REFERENCE TO RELATED APPLICATIONS 
     This application obtains the benefit of the earlier filing date of Provisional Patent Application No. 61/341,874 filed on Apr. 6, 2010. 
    
    
     BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION 
     1. Field of the Invention 
     The present invention relates to dish carriers, and more particularly to an interlocking panel assembly conformed to support arrays of dishes both in the course of their delivery and as a stationary support. 
     2. Description of the Prior Art 
     Those engaged in preparing and serving food for consumption by others have consistently faced the burdens an array of dishes entails, particularly when more than one person is being served a full meal at a dining table. In commercial settings this burdensome task has been partly assisted by large carrying trays that were then placed either on any adjacent vacant table, or more frequently, on collapsible stands temporarily erected next to the table being served. The manipulative difficulty of a large tray on its fully loaded path from the kitchen has nonetheless become legendary, even providing endless comedic sequences in many of our films, and various mechanical alternatives were therefore devised to assist the overburdened food service provider. 
     These earlier assisting mechanical alternatives fall generally into three groupings of dish carrier assemblies that also serve as a stand, the first arranged as a cage within which the dishes are suspended by their edges or arranged as a stack, exemplified by the teachings of U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,064,236 to Stanfield; 5,542,731 to Wills; and others; the second in which dish supporting trays, supports or shelves are cantilevered from a common axis that is provided with a support base, as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 953,007 to Haller; 4,911,308 to Nylund; 6,749,208 to Orozco et el.; and others; and the third in which the peripheral edge of each dish is captured in a cantilevered manner within exteriorly directed notch structures around a common carrying axis that also serves as a support base, as in U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,088,605, 5,836,458 and 5,944,200 all to Nales; U.S. Pat. No. 7,520,550 and US publication 2009/0195005 to and by Lord; and many others. 
     Each of the foregoing, while suitable for the purposes intended, either entails a complex, costly and often cumbersome structure, as exemplified by those in the first two groupings, or the simpler, but more precariously suspended and therefore difficult to manipulate, carrying arrangement in which the engaged dish peripheries are relied on to carry the whole plate loading. Both these modalities are particularly bothersome in a busy restaurant setting and a simply constructed dish carrying arrangement that obtains the benefits and deployment convenience of the cantilevering dish edge capture, but in a more stable and redundant form, is therefore extensively desired and it is one such arrangement that is disclosed herein. 
     SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 
     Accordingly, it is the general purpose and object of the present invention to provide a simply assembled dish carrying structure in which the carried food laden dishes are resiliently retained in cantilevered engagement at varying levels of insertion. 
     Other objects of the invention are to provide a dish carrying assembly which is easily separated into conveniently stored panels. 
     Yet further and additional objects of the invention shall become apparent upon the examination of the description that follows in conjunction with the illustrations appended hereto. 
     Briefly, these and other objects are accomplished within the present invention by providing a pair of generally similar orthogonally interlocking structures each defined as a vertically elongate rectangular panel provided at the top and bottom edges with corresponding co-planar upper and lower lateral extensions each notched by opposingly aligned transverse grooves conformed for crossed mating receipt within each other. Once thus interlocked the resulting crossed structural combination then provides the necessary three dimensional engagement which can either serve as a stand or as a carrying assembly which may be facilitated by forming a handle in the panel that is provided with the upwardly open interlocking grooves. 
     The panel edges between the lateral extensions are each provided with matching cut-outs each covered with a resilient edge covering and each shaped so that in their crossing interlocked combination conformingly matched edge recesses are provided in which correspondingly shaped peripheral portions of dishes are receivable for a resiliently effected cantilever moment capture of the dish. In this manner various dish shapes may conveniently accommodated by the simple expedient of the cut-out shape, reducing fabrication costs and the need for specialized inventory. Of course, the planar nature of the two main components of this inventive assembly, and also their similar planforms, provide both manufacturing and great storage convenience when not in use. 
     Thus an easily disassembled and easily stored structural combination is obtained which can be rendered in any convenient material form and which, by the shaping convenience of the edge capturing recesses, can include multiple geometric shapings of the capturing edges to accommodate various dish forms so that inadvertent dropping of the dishes received therein are minimized. 
    
    
     
       BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS 
       FIG..  1  is a perspective illustration of a first embodiment of the inventive dish carrying structural assembly in its interlocked and deployed form; 
       FIG..  2  is a perspective illustration of a first embodiment of the inventive dish carrying structural assembly shown in FIG..  1  separated by its parts; 
       FIG..  3  is a plan view, again separated by parts, of the inventive dish carrying structural assembly shown in FIG..  1 ; 
       FIG..  4  is a side view of the inventive dish carrying structural assembly shown in FIG..  2 ; 
       FIG..  5  is a side view detail of one portion of the inventive dish carrying shown in FIG.S.  1 - 4 ; 
       FIG..  6  is a diagrammatic top view illustrating the various dish alignments in various cantilevered captures rendered possible within the capturing recesses provided within the inventive dish carrier structural assembly; and 
       FIG..  7  is yet another side view, separated by parts, of an alternative embodiment of the inventive dish supporting structural assembly. 
     
    
    
     DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENTS 
     As shown in FIG.S.  1 - 5  the inventive dish carrier assembly, generally designated by the numeral  10 , comprises a pair of substantially similar generally planar panels which by their substantial similarity shall be designated herein by the trailing numerals  1  and  2 , where the respective panels  11 - 1  and  11 - 2  are each of an elongate, generally rectangular planform respectively defined by inner and outer longitudinal edges  11 - 1   i  and  11 - 1   o  and  11 - 2   i  and  11 - 2   o . Transversely an upper and a lower edge  11 - 1   u  and  11 - 11  and  11 - 2   u  and  11 - 2   l  limit the planform of the respective panels  11 - 1  and  11 - 2 , each of the upper and lower edges extending beyond the corresponding inner edges  11 - 1   i  and  11 - 2   i  to continue as the exterior edges of corresponding upper and a lower planar extensions  12 - 1   u  and  12 - 11  and  12 - 2   u  and  12 - 2   l , with the lower extensions  12 - 1   l  and  12 - 2   l  on each panel being greater in width and spanning further from the corresponding inner edges  11 - 1   i  and  11 - 2   i  than the upper extensions  12 - 1   u  and  12 - 2   u.    
     To effect an interlock between the panels the interior edge of the upper extensions of panel  11 - 1 , immediately proximate its inner edge  11 - 1   i , is transversely notched by an downwardly open notch  11 - 1   nd  with a conformingly similar, but upwardly directed, transverse notch  11 - 2   nu  formed in the corresponding upper edge  11 - 2   u  of panel  11 - 2  with a similar, opposingly directed, set of conforming notches  11 - 2   nu  and  11 -l nd  formed in the lower inner edge of the extension  12 - 11  and the lower extension  12 - 21 . These last opposing notches, and also the corresponding extensions in which they are formed, are each somewhat deeper, and correspondingly also wider in their planform, in order to simplify and render convenient their sequential engagement to interlock the panels  11 - 1  and  11 - 2  in a crossed relationship. 
     In this interlocked configuration the inner edges  11 -l i  and  11 - 2   i  align in a closely adjacent, but substantially orthogonal, relationship with the crosswise engaged lower extensions  12 - 11  and  12 - 21  forming a supporting base for this interlocked panel combination. A handle  14  formed in the upper extension  12 - 2   u  of panel  11 - 2  is then useful to lift the engaged panel combination from ground to serve as a conveniently assembled, and also conveniently disassembled and stored, carrier structure for dishes D that are suspended in cantilever from a set of matching panel recesses  15 - a  through  15 - n  that are formed in each of the panels in the form of mutually aligned cut-outs from the inner edges  11 -l i  and  11 - 2   i  into the corresponding panel and to assure a secure cantilevered engagement a resilient strip  16 , such as an adhesively attachable foam rubber strip, is applied to each of the edges of the recesses  15 - a  through  15 - n . 
     Those skilled in the art will appreciate that the foregoing structure is directed for use in settings where a large number of dishes need to be handled. Of course, such settings rarely involve dishes that are each an ‘object d&#39;art’, i.e., a precious, extremely fragile artistic piece, but dishes D that are appropriately designed with correct contemplation for strength of materials, the sanitary aspects of the finish, mass density and the like. Simply, dishes appropriately designed for convenient handling with appropriate attention to notions like scaling laws and commercially expedient materials are those that need the handling assistance disclosed herein. These typically include a fairly large circular base with a well defined base edge circle BD supporting the bowl BW surrounded by a peripheral wall PW which either extends upwardly for those dishes that convey fluid foods or that projects generally radially to form a peripheral surface PS. In virtually all instances, however, there is a well-defined, flat, circular bottom surface BS surrounded by a peripheral edge PE that is either substantially above the bottom surface BS or close to the plane thereof. 
     These attributes are successfully used to advantage in the edge shaping of each of the recesses  15   a  through  15   n  by providing a convex curvature, or bulge,  17  in the bottom portion of the recess edge with a complementary conforming, but radially further from the inner edges  11 -l i  or  11 - 2   i , upper edge convolution  18  that is generally spaced from the convex curvature  17  by a radial and vertical gap similar to the gap between the base surface BS and the peripheral edge PE of the particular dish configuration that is to be received in the recess. Since this geometric relationship provides a generally fixed distance between the fulcrum point supporting the base surface BS on the convex curvature  17  and the opposing contact point between the peripheral edge PE at the complementary convolution  18  in each of the panels  11 - 1  and  11 - 2  the resulting cantilevered engagement accommodates substantial misalignments of the dish D while still maintaining moment levels of the cantilevered suspension that is within the material strength capacity of the dish D. 
     Thus each of the recesses  15   a  through  15   d  can be conformed to accept a particular family of dishes, assuring in each instance a self-correcting shift in the fulcrum contact between the dish bottom surface BS and the curvature  17  which occurs within the recesses in both panels  11 - 1  and  11 - 2 , compensating for a wide range of misalignments in the handling of the dish. Moreover, where the number of recesses is insufficient for the dish variety used the upper convolution  18  may be segmented as illustrated by the recess  15   n  where a substantially higher inner convolution segment  18 - i  extends partly into the recess to accommodate dishes that have a substantial peripheral wall PW while the remaining outer portion  18 - o  then drops to a closer spacing to accommodate flat dishes characterized by a substantial peripheral edge PE that, of course, requires deeper insertion. 
     In this manner all sorts of complementing dish conFIG.urations can be easily accommodated in a structure that is inexpensive to produce, easily disassembled and stored and conveniently used. The simple planar nature of all the interlocking components of the present invention assures all the foregoing benefits including the packaging convenience benefit when accompanying a sale of complementing dishes. 
     Moreover, as illustrated in  FIG. 6  the crossed interlocking of the panels  11 - 1  and  11 - 2  results in an accommodating cantilevered capture at various degrees of dish offsets illustrated as Da through Dn. Simply, a well centered positioning of each dish is not required as the capturing engagement can translate both along and across each panel. 
     While the foregoing conFIG.uration includes the provision of a handle to conform the interlocked combination into a dish carrier, a somewhat simpler implementation illustrated in FIG..  7  may be conformed to serve only as a dish stand generally designated by the numeral  110  in which panels  111 - 1  and  111 - 2  are again interlocked but having the handle omitted. Like numbered parts functioning in a like manner to that previously described panels  111 - 1  and  111 - 2  are again defined by inner edges  11 - 1   i  and  11 - 2   i  which are each provided with recesses illustrated here as only recesses  15   a  and  15   n  where each are again composed of edge convolutions  18  opposed by the convex curvatures  17 . Of course, the previously described interlocking notches and panel extensions are all repeated in this conFIG.uration as is also the convenience of use of the upper edges  111 - 1   u  and  111 - 2   u  to support yet another dish, each lower support obtaining the forgiving nature of the cantilevered dish capture also previously described. 
     Obviously many modifications and variations of the instant invention can be effected without departing from the spirit of the teachings herein. It is therefore intended that the scope of the invention be determined solely by the claims appended hereto.

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