Toothbrush
AssigneeColgate-Palmolive Company
InventorDouglas Hohlbein
Life of this patent
Estimating the term…
Abstract
A toothbrush (10) is disclosed with soft fingers (16) mounted on the toothbrush head (14). During use of the tooth-brush the fingers move laterally relative to the axis of the tooth-brush thereby improving the tooth cleaning and gum massaging performance of the toothbrush. The lateral movement of the fingers is accomplished by relatively stiff ribs (24) which physically interconnect the fingers to flexible portions of the toothbrush head. The ribs translate flexure of the head into the lateral movement of the fingers.
Claims17
A toothbrush comprising a handle having a longitudinal axis, a flexible head secured to the handle, the head being flexibly mounted to the handle along the longitudinal axis, the head having an upper face with fingers flexibly mounted thereon, and ribs connecting the fingers to the upper face, whereby flexure of the head under compression or expansion along the longitudinal axis causes a longitudinal movement of ends of the ribs with respect to each other and a lateral movement of the fingers relative to the longitudinal axis.
A toothbrush comprising a handle having a longitudinal axis, a flexible head secured to the handle, the head being flexibly mounted to the handle along the longitudinal axis, the head having an upper face with a finger flexibly mounted thereon, and ribs extending from the upper face and connecting the finger to the upper face, the ribs being disposed at an acute angle to the longitudinal axis, whereby flexure of the head under compression or expansion along the longitudinal axis causes a lateral movement of the finger relative to the longitudinal axis.
Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.