GB2274830A - Pocket games wallet - Google Patents

Abstract

A pocket games wallet has three leaves 11, 12 and 14. Two leaves 11 and 12 provide a playing surface. The third leaf 14 carries a tray 13 for apparatus, e.g playing pieces, with which to play the game. <IMAGE>

Description

WALLET Field of the Invention The invention relates to wallets.

The invention is applicable with particular advantage to so-called pocket or pocketable wallets. These are popular nowadays because of the relative ease with which they can be formed from plastics materials in a variety of attractive surface finishes and sold-on to the end-user at similarly attractively value-for-money prices. Modern heat-welding techniques make it possible to fold the wallet covers without the need for traditional binding or stitching, and they can be surface-embossed, printed, and sealed around a stiffener sheet without having to be processed by any of the nowadays comparatively laborious traditional book-binding methods.

Pocket games, classically chess, draughts, and the like - are marketed in this wallet format and the invention will be described and illustrated in several embodiments of pocket game wallet. Whilst it is currently envisaged that the invention finds its most advantageous application immediately to a pocket games wallet, it will be appreciated from these opening paragraphs that it has a wider application potentially.

Review of Art Knows to the Applicant In the specific field of portable pocket-sized board game-playing apparatus "pocket game wallets" - the published patent applications of Kazuhide Yonekawa provide relevant examples of the known art. GB 2 253 610A for instance shows a pocket games wallet of basically two-leaf configuration. One leaf accommodates the game-playing board, of necessity folded in half in order to fit within the confines of the area of the leaf. The other houses a similarly withdrawable compartmented tray which contains the playing pieces, game cards, and the rest of the game-playing equipment.

There are other Yonekawa published patent specifications currently in existence and the reader is directed to study these if he thinks it necessary or profitable to do so. At this stage the specific one just referred to is used simply to illustrate that pocket game wallets have been known for some time.

But it is notable that, as mentioned, in the wallet of GB 2253 610A: a) the game-playing board and the tray are both manufactured separately, initially, from the wallet as such, as well as manufactured separately from each other; b) they have to be individually inserted into their respective wallet leaves for transport - and they are each, therefore, potentially capable of being inadvertently lost from the wallet at any time; c) the game-playing board has to be folded, in order to lie within the wallet leaf confines - but it is shown as having only one of its folded halves inserted into the leaf, a somewhat awkward operation each time it is inserted into and withdrawn from the leaf; d) as illustrated, the board cannot be used for game-play whilst remaining within its leaf - because the adjacent wall of the tray in the wallet prevents the board from being completely opened-out. The board has to be taken out of the wallet every time the game is played, and correspondingly re-inserted after game-play finishes; e) the compartmented tray, conventionally, carries a relatively large number of disparate and easily-mixed (and equally easily-lost) game goods - and again has to be taken out of the tray, and re-inserted into it with its game goods, every time the game is played: it is impossible to play the game (because it is impossible to gain access to the game playing pieces) with the tray remaining within its wallet leaf; and f) last but not least - and certainly not exhaustively - there is no positive closure means illustrated to hold the wallet securely shut when it is being carried between games.

Summarv of the Invention The invention seeks to provide a wallet which - amongst other potential uses and embodiments - can be embodied in a pocket games wallet having advantages over the wallet described and illustrated in GB 2253 610A.

The scope of the invention will be defined in the Claims.

Brief Description of the Drawings There are fifteen separate Figures in the accompanying drawings.

Figures 1 and 2 show a first embodiment of the invention in, respectively, fully-folded-open and folded-shut states; and both Figures are drawn in perspective.

Figures 3 through 6 show this same embodiment in, respectively, top plan view; bottom plan view; end elevation; and side elevation, all in a fully opened-out state.

Figures 7 through 10 show the tray-carrying leaf of the embodiment in greater detail, Figure 7 being an enlarged perspective view of this region of the embodiment and Figures 8, 9 and 10 diagrammatic side elevations.

Figure 11 shows the wallet again fully opened-out and with its game-playing board in place; viewed from the same angle as Figure 3.

Figure 12 is a view similar to that of Figures 11 and 3 in aspect, but is deliberately simplified to explain further details of the construction of the embodiment.

Figures 13 and 14 show a second embodiment of the invention, respectively in opened-out and folded-shut states, and both are drawn in perspective.

Figure 15 shows a third embodiment, opened-out, drawn in perspective.

Description of the Presentlv Preferred Embodiments A pocket games wallet shown primarily in Figures 1 and 2 is of basic threeleaf design and is so sized as to be readily pocket-carried.

The wallet is made from an appropriate plastics material, internally stiffened, fold-formed by known methods so that two of the leaves (referenced 11, 12 respectively) fold substantially flat on one another and are then folded over themselves onto a vac-formed thin-walled plastics compartmented tray 13 carried on the third leaf 14.

The fold region between the tray and the leaf 11 is wider than the correspondingly functional fold region between the two leaves 11 and 12; so that the wallet can fold shut in the manner just described. The leaf stiffeners are not illustrated but can comprise card. The way the plastics leaves are heat-sealed around the periphery of the stiffeners similarly needs no description to the intended skilled addressee of this patent specification, and neither does the way in which the thin-walled compartmented tray is initially formed separately from the wallet by known means before being heat-sealed onto its leaf 14 to form an ultimately integral part of the wallet.

In use, the compartmented tray contains the game-playing pieces and other parts of the apparatus distinct from the game-playing board. These are inserted "loose" into the open-topped compartments of the tray. Because the base of the tray is heat-welded into the wallet leaf to form an integral part of the finished wallet, there is no need for any transparent tray-retaining pouch such as the one illustrated in GB 2 253 610A. And the tray 13 can therefore be used, during game-play, without needing either removal from the wallet (indeed it cannot be removed) or the withdrawal of any kind of cover from any of its compartments (because there is none).

The game-playing board is also incorporated into this particular wallet without needing removal for game-play. The two halves of the board are carried respectively one on each of the leaves 11 and 12. When the wallet is fully opened, as illustrated in all but Figure 2 of the drawings, the opentopped tray 13 faces the opened-out marked game-playing surface of the board when the wallet is laid flat and viewed in top plan (i.e as in Figures 1 and 3 for example).

The two halves of the game-playing board can be heat-sealed to their respective leaves 11 and 12 around the periphery of each leaf. Alternatively the leaves can incorporate slide-in transparent plastics pouches into which a user can insert different game boards at will. When the boards are so-called magnetic boards, for example, tin plate stiffeners can be incorporated into the leaves 11 and 12 beneath the game-playing surface and these and similar details can be determined from known alternative constructions and methods.

A tab 15 projects from one side of the leaf 14 as shown. It is formed initially as an integral part of the plastics sheet of the leaf. It adjoins the walletoutermost side of the tray 13 and it incorporates a touch-and-close fastener half 16.

The fastener half 16 can be one half of a VELCRO fastener (i.e a filamentary hook-and-eye closure) or it could be a more traditional mechanical-spring press-stud fastener. Differing fasteners have their own respective advantages when applied to the practical embodiment of the present invention. But it can clearly be seen from the drawings that, with the wallet folded shut, the fastener holds it securely and prevents the leaves from easily unfolding.

The game-playing boards and the game-playing pieces and other loose equipment carried in the wallet are thus relatively safe in transit.

To ensure even greater efficiency and security of closure during transit, figures 7 through 10 illustrate the way in which the wallet-outermost side wall of the tray 13 has been reduced in height towards its central region. This wall 17, in the particular example illustrated, has a height of approximately 10 millimetres at each of its opposite ends. Along a region mid-way of its length, the height is approximately 9.25 millimetres. The reduction to and from each opposite end 10 millimetre height from this reduced mid-region is a progressive one. The wall thus has a continuously curved profile when viewed in side elevation as in Figures 8 and 9.

When the leaves 11 and 12 close against the wall, and the closure tab 15, 15 is applied, the tab (which is of course adjacent the reduced-height mid-region of the tray outer wall 17) pulls the central portion of the folded-together leaves 11 and 12 towards the reduced-height central region of the tray outer wall.

This causes greater pressure than normal to be applied to the extreme end regions of the tray outer wall 17 with a resultant extra security and resistance to inadvertent unfolding.

In the alternative design shown in Figure 10, the tray outer wall 17 is not progressively curved in aspect but comprises three successive linear regions along its top as shown respectively by the capital-letter designations A, B and C. Region B which extends (for example) for approximately the same distance as the width of the closure tab 15, is the reduced-height region. The other two run linearly from it to the full-height opposite-end regions of the wall 17.

The three remaining walls of the tray are all of constant 10 millimetre height in this particular embodiment.

Figure 11 shows the marked game-playing surface of one particular board in place in the wallet. It is a board for playing a pocket version of the wellknown MONOPOLY board game. Others can be used instead, or in addition if they are removable and insertable at will. This one is shown purely by way of example and with no claim - at least for these present purposes - to any right in any of the markings (including the wording) on the board surface.

Figure 12 shows the way in which all three leaves 11, 12 and 14 each have a respective card stiffener inserted into them before being heat-sealed around those stiffeners. The tray 13 (not shown) is heat-welded onto its leave 14 afterwards. But the other feature specifically illustrated in Figure 12 is the cut-out in the card that stiffens the leaf 11. This cut-out matches in profile the tab 15 which holds the wallet closed. When the wallet is folded shut, the cutout enables the tab to close the wallet more effectively than if it were not so formed.

Figures 13 and 14, and Figure 15, are almost self-explanatory in view of the foregoing description and their predecessor Figures. In Figure 13 the tray is again compartmented but the wallet is a two-leaf rather than a three-leaf design. Figure 14 shows this design folded shut. Figure 15 is again a three-leaf, like the main embodiment of Figures 1 through 12, but this time the tray is a non-compartmented tray.

In both these cases the same closure means, namely the combination of the tab and the reduced-height tray outer wall, is used as described for the main embodiment.

Modifications to these illustrated embodiments can be made within the scope of the invention. The variations in design of the closure tab have been mentioned and it could with advantage be a magnetic closure; especially where the game-playing board is itself a so-called magnetic board (e.g with the leaves 11 and 12 stiffened with tin plate).

In another possibly advantageous development, either or both of the fold regions separating the leaves 11 and 12, and 11 and 14, respectively could incorporate means which spring-bias them shut in an "over-centre" manner. In other words, as the wallet is progressively opened out, beyond a certain stage the leaves ten automatically to snap open and then to rest relatively rigidly in a fully-opened-out condition so that the wallet will lie flat for game-play. As the wallet is subsequently folded, beyond a certain stage the leaves 11 and 12 tend to snap shut against one another; and - simultaneously or preferably subsequent to this snapping-shut of those two leaves - the fold region between the leaf 11 and the leaf 14 tends to shut-up automatically.

These latter possibilities can be combined with or - conceivably - could replace, the closure 15.

In any practical embodiment of the invention the skilled reader will of course position any necessary second half half-fastener appropriately on the outer face of the leaf 11.

The words VELCRO and MONOPOLY used earlier in this specification are currently United Kingdom Registered Trade Marks.

Claims (8)

1. A pocket games wallet having three leaves, two leaves providing a playing surface and the third leaf carrying a tray for apparatus with which to play the game.

2. A wallet as claimed in claim 1, wherein the leaves are made from internally stiffened fold-formed plastics material.

3. A wallet as claimed in claim 2, wherein the tray is formed from plastics material and welded onto its leaf.

4. A wallet as claimed in claim 4 wherein the tray has an outermost side wall which is reduced in height in a central region.

5. A wallet as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the tray is divided into compartments.

6. A wallet as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the leaves providing the playing surface comprise magnetic boards.

7. A wallet as claimed in any preceding claim, including a touch and close fastener, a hook and loop fastener or a press stud fastener.

8. A pocket games wallet substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to, or illustrated in, the accompanying drawings.