Floatable beverage holder
OwnerSteven C. Powell, Steven L. Kulcsarinventors
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A buoy which is suitable for supporting various sizes of beverage containers and allows the center of gravity of the combined buoy and container to be readily adjusted in order to restrain tipping.
Claims39
A buoy for supporting any one of a variety of sizes of containers in a generally upright position when the buoy and supported container are placed in water, said buoy comprising:
- a buoyant body;
- a generally circular opening extending through the body along an opening axis and adapted to receive the container;
- and
- a resilient holding member defining at least a portion of the opening and adapted to frictionally engage the container when the container is received in the opening,
- said resilient holding member being sufficiently flexible to allow the diameter of the opening to be varied by at least 10 percent without causing substantial plastic deformation of the resilient holding member.
A buoy for supporting any one of a variety of sizes of containers in a generally upright position when the buoy and supported container are placed in water, said buoy comprising:
- a body presenting an inner surface,
- said inner surface defining an opening extending through the body along an opening axis, said opening adapted to receive the container,
- said inner surface presenting a tapered portion extending at a taper angle which is oblique relative to the opening axis when the container is not received in the opening,
- at least part of the tapered portion being elastically deformed by and frictionally engaging the container when the container is received in the opening.
A buoy for supporting any one of a variety of sizes of containers in a generally upright position when the buoy and the supported container are placed in water, said buoy comprising:
- a body presenting an outer perimeter and defining an opening extending through the body along an opening axis, said opening adapted to receive the container,
- said body defining a plurality of spaced-apart open slots extending between the opening and the outer perimeter,
- said open slots including an open end adjacent the opening and a closed end positioned between the opening and the outer perimeter,
- said open slots allowing the body to be sufficiently deformed so that the size of the opening can be varied to allow the body to receive and frictionally hold containers having various outer diameters without causing substantial plastic deformation of the body.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.