US3367610A - Toothbrush holder - Google Patents

Description

' Feb. 6, 1968 A. M. LINDQIUIST 3,367,610

TOOTHBRUSH HOLDER Filed Aug. 17, 1965 Q ALBERTA M. LINDQUIST.

INVENTOR.

BY W

AT TORNE Y.

3,367,610 TOOTHBRUSH HOLDER Alberta M. Lindquist, Pleasant Hill, Calif. (690A Rand Ave., Oakland, Calif. 94610) Filed Aug. 17, 1965, Ser. No. 480,320 3 Claims. (Cl. 248110) ABSTRACT OF THE DISCLOSURE A facility for making, without the use of tools, a fixture including a horizontal platform element having an aperture therein for receiving the handle of a toothbrush for supporting the latter and a vertical back element provided with pressure adhesive for securing the fixture to a wall.

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION Field of invention Development of facilities which will render available to travelers a means for hygienically supporting a toothbrush in whatever quarters the traveler may be occupying while a guest either in a hotel, motel or a private residence or to be used by employees, students and others in clothes lockers where there is a need for having a toothbrush available to the person using the locker.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION 7 The primary object of the present invention is to provide a facility which can be carried on the person of a traveler with the same ease that he carries a personal business card and which contains within itself all of the means necessary for him to convert this at will and in a few moments into a toothbrush supporting fixture secured to any vertical surface on which it is convenient to mount the same.

Another object of the invention is to provide such a facility which is so inexpensive that the user can afford to make use of it in traveling and discard the same whenever'he finds it necessary to change quarters and, to this end, to provide such a facility with means for mounting it on a vertical surface that adapts it to be readily removed, to be thus discarded, without marring the surface on which it has been mounted.

A still further object of the invention is to provide such a facility which is not thicker than a calling card and when sold is in a flat state comprising an area substantially sessed of the quality of being manually bendable and of taking a set at the angle to which it is bent so that it may be readily converted by the user from the flat condition in which it is purchased and stored, as in the billfold of the user, to a bent condition in which it provides both a vertical back providing a pressure adhesive surface and a horizontal platform having an aperture for receiving the handle of a toothbrush and thus comprises a toothbrush supporting fixture when the same is pressure applied to a vertical surface such as the inside of a wall or door of a medicine cabinet or a clothes locker or the like.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS The manner of accomplishing the foregoing objects as well as further objects and advantages, will be made manifest in the following description, taken in connection with the acompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of a preferred embodiment of the invention after this has been completed and mount- United States Patent Ofiice 3,367,610 Patented Feb. 6, 1968 ed on a vertical surface such as provided by the inside of a wall cabinet door.

FIG. 2 is a vertical sectional view taken along the line 2-2 of FIG. 1 and showing the holder of the invention at a reduced scale with a toothbrush supported therein.

FIG. 3 is a perspective view of the invention in the flat form in which it is manufactured, shipped and sold.

FIG. 4 is a view similar to FIG. 3 with the holder of the invention rotated about a transverse axis 180 to expose the adhesive bearing surface of the holder upwardly and shows the protective cover being peeled backwardly from said adhesive.

FIG. 5 is an enlarged diagrammatic longitudinal fragmentary sectional view of a middle portion of the holder of the invention and illustrating the relationship of the inner edges of the adhesive layer and protective cover with the notches provided in the opposite side edges of the strip comprising the invention and shows the strip while it is still flat.

FIG. 6 is a view similar to FIG. 5 and illustrates the holder of the invention after the strip of the holder has been bent through an angle of along the line of said notches and the overlay cover has been removed from the adhesive and the adhesive covered back portion of the holder applied to a vertical surface of a wall cabinet.

Referring specifically to the drawings, the invention is therein illustrated as embodied in a toothbrush holder 10 which comprises a fiat strip 11 of thin and stiff but springy sheet plastic material which is preferably about one inch wide and about two and three-quarter inches long although the invention is not limited in any way to these specific dimensions. The strip 11 may be made of any suitable plastic but is preferably made of white polished vinyl, .020 of an inch thick and having the degree of stiffness and bendability required for the holder 10 as will be pointed out hereinafter.

The strip 11 is preferably provided with die-formed sideedge notches 12 which indicate opposite ends of the transverse line 12a which divides strip 11 into a platform portion 13, having a toothbrush handle receiving hole 14, and a back portion 15. A thin coating 16 of pressure adhesive is applied to the back portion 15. A relatively non-adhesive protective cover 17 is temporarily applied to the coating 16 and adheres to this coating sufficiently to remain in place until it is desired to remove such cover whereupon this is readily accomplished as shown in FIG. 4.

In the die-forming of the holder 10, the corners thereof are bevelled as indicated at 18, this being for ornamental purposes and to eliminate the sharp rectangular corners of the strip 11.

The toothbrush holder 10 of the present invention is manufactured in flat form as shown in FIG. 3 and remains in this form until it is desired to apply the same to a particular flat vertical surface such as the surface 19 of a metal wall 20 of a wall cabinet 21. The installation of the holder 10-requires only a few seconds to accomplish this. It starts with gripping the back portion 15 in one hand and the platform portion 13 in the other hand and then bending the strip 11 through a 90 angle about the transverse line 12a so that cover 17 lies outside said angle. The cover 17 is now removed as by taking hold of one corner thereof and peeling this from the adhesive coating 16. The toothbrush holder 10 is now ready to be applied in any desired location to the surface 19 shown in FIGS. 1, 2 and 6, and this is done merely by pressing the back portion 15 of the holder against the surface 19 so as to cause the pressure adhesive coating 16 provided on said portion to be brought into strong adhesive relation with the surface 19.

The adhesive coating 16 provided on the brush holder is selected to form a strong bond between the strip portion and the cabinet wall which is ample to retain the holder 10 in the position in which it is thus installed while this holder is subjected to Weights such as represented in a toothbrush 22 having a handle 23 and bristles 24. The hole 14 provided in toothbrush holder 10 is preferably about three-eighths inch wide and elevensixteenths inch long and is adapted to accommodate the handle 23 of any of the various sizes of toothbrushes in common use. This hole is narrow enough however so that the bristles 24 of the brush will not pass through said hole whereby the brush is supported by engagement of the bristles with the holder.

Inasmuch as the toothbrush holder 10 of the present invention is manifestly adapted to be very inexpensively manufactured so that it can be sold at a low price, and can be packaged fiat in an envelope in quantities of various size and is especially convenient for use by travelers, and is adapted to be installed readily on surfaces which are ordinarily not cluttered u with fixtures and are thus available for this purpose, for instance, the inside face of the door of a bathroom wall cabinet, and inasmuch as it will remain where so installed during normal use indefinitely, and yet may be removed when it is desired to do this by the application of a reasonable amount of force and without damaging the surface to which it was applied in any way, it is believed manifest that the present invention has great utility and is novel and patentable over prior devices offered in this art.

Among the many uses to which the holder 10 may be put is for advertising other products. Advertising matter promoting the sale of a dentifrice, for instance, may be printed on the exposed face of the back portion 15. The holder carrying such advertising could be given away as a premium with each purchase of a prescribed quantity of said dentifrice. When the holder is then mounted as shown in FIG. 1, the attention of the purchaser is frequently directed inadvertently to the advertising message printed thereon.

An important advantage of the present invention is that the holder 10 comprising the same is marketed as an incomplete facility which is in fiat form and comprises a thin sheet of vinyl about the thickness of a business card and having about half the area of such a card and is thus readily stored in a billfold or shirt pocket or in a very small space in a toilet kit or in a womans purse. It is further to be noted that the facility thus provided contains within itself all the means for converting the same merely by application of the hands thereto and without the use of any tools into a toothbrush supporting fixture and mounting the fixture on any flat vertical surface desired without doing the slightest damage to this surface. The fixture 10 thus produced by bending the fiat strip 11 along the transverse line 12a is readily mountable on the inside face of the door of a medicine cabinet in a bathroom or lavatory or on a mirror, or on the inside vertical face of a locker door and provides when so mounted a personal fixture applied by the user which he knows is in hygienic condition and will support his tooth- 4 brush without any possibility of it being contaminated as by the rags used by the janitor in cleaning a permanent fixture which is a part of the bathroom fixtures and depends upon the ministrations of a janitor service for its assumed hygienic condition.

I claim:

1. A facility from which a toothbrush holder may be manually produced and permanently mounted on a vertical surface without the use of tools, said facility comprising a fiat strip of thin and stiff but springy sheet material, said material being sharply bendable transversely intermediate its ends at a angle without breaking the same by the application of ordinary manual pressure thereto, so that the material takes a set at said angle which stifily retains said strip in bent form; a layer of pressure adhesive coating one face of one end portion of said strip; and a relatively non-adhesive protective cover overlying and temporarily sticking lightly to said coating, there being an aperture provided in the opposite end portion of said strip suitable for receiving the handle of a toothbrush so as to support said brush when said strip is bent as aforesaid away from said cover and said cover is removed and said adhesive is applied to a suitable smooth vertical supporting surface.

2. A combination as recited in claim 1 wherein said strip is bent transversely intermediate its ends at a 90 angle to convert the same into a toothbrush holder.

3. A facility from which a toothbrush supporting fixture may be manually produced and permanently mounted on a vertical surface without the use of tools, said facility comprising a fiat rectangular strip of plastics material such as vinyl or the like with dimensions in the general order of .020 of an inch in thickness, one inch in width and two and three-quarters inches in length, two half portions of said strip, integrally joined therein along a medial transverse line, constituting respectively a platform portion and a back portion, there being a hole formed in said platform portion for receiving the handle of a toothbrush for supporting said brush with the bristles resting on said platform portion; a coating of pressure adhesive applied to one face of said back portion of said strip; and a relatively non-adhesive protective cover overlying said pressure adhesive coating to preserve the latter pending arrival of the time for using said coating, said cover permitting said back portion to be gripped in one hand without contacting said coating while said platform portion is gripped in the other hand and said strip bent at said medial line to form a right angle and produce said toothbrush supporting fixture, said cover being readily removable to then expose said coating of pressure adhesive whereby the latter may be pressed against said vertical surface to mount said fixture thereon.

References Cited UNITED STATES PATENTS 2,957,584 10/1960 Jenkins 21l65 CHANCELLOR E. HARRIS, Primary Examiner.

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