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AssigneeAMF Bowling, Inc.
InventorsKent Widrick, John Madsen, Winston Sanders, Darrin Bryant, Leonard Pauley
Estimating the term…
A bowling alley bumper system includes a pair of elongated bumpers extending along the length of an alley for guarding the gutters of a bowling alley when the bumpers are in an extended or guarding position. Each of the bumpers also includes a string of lights within a clear plastic rail which is disposed along an upper portion of the bumper. A controller is provided for pulsing the lights along each of the bumpers to produce a "chase" or other visual effect. For example, the controller may be used to illuminate the first, fourth, seventh, etc. lights in a string, followed by the illumination of the second, fifth, eighth, etc., lights, and then the third, sixth, ninth, etc., lights to give the appearance of moving down the alley. A controller may also be used to regulate the illumination of the lights across adjacent alleys.
A bowling alley including a longitudinally extending lane having two laterally spaced sides and a concave gutter adjacent to each of said two sides of said lane and a bumper system for guarding said gutters and for producing visual effects along the length of said longitudinally extending lane, said bumper system including a pair of longitudinally extending bumpers disposed along the length of said gutters, and means for moving said bumpers between a first or guarding position to thereby prevent a bowling ball from falling into said gutters and a recessed, or retracted position for ordinary bowling, each of said bumpers including a longitudinally extending clear plastic rail having a longitudinally extending passageway extending therethrough and a string of lights disposed within said passageway and extending along said bumper, said clear plastic rail forming an upper most portion of said bumpers when in said first or guarding position and said upper most portion generally flush with said lane when said bumpers are in a recessed or retracted position, and means for pulsating said lights to produce a visual effect along the length of said lane.
A plurality of side-by-side bowling alleys, each of which includes a longitudinally extending lane having two laterally spaced sides and a concave gutter adjacent to each of said two sides of said lane and a bumper system for guarding said gutters, and for producing visual effects along the length of said longitudinally extending lane, each of said bumper systems including a pair of longitudinally extending bumpers disposed along the length of said gutters and means for moving said bumpers between an extended or guarding position to thereby prevent a bowling ball from falling into said gutters, and a recessed or retracted position for ordinary bowling, each of said bumpers including a longitudinally extending clear plastic rail having a longitudinally extending passageway extending therethrough and a string of lights disposed within said passageway and extending along said bumpers, said clear plastic rail disposed on and forming an upper most portion of said bumper when in said first or guarding position and generally flush with said lane when said bumper is in a recessed or retracted position, and control means for controlling the pulsating of said lights in a plurality of adjacent alleys to thereby produce a wave effect from alley to alley.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.