GB2319213A - A notepad sub-divided by perforations into detachable areas for recording messages - Google Patents

Abstract

The notepad for use on a desk top has an area large enough (A2 paper size) to ensure friction prevents the pad moving as it is being written on. Each sheet is divided into detachable sub-areas 5 by means of a grid of two sets of mutually perpendicular perforations 3,4. The sheets may carry printed messages and/or be coated to allow a permanent copy of messages to be imprinted on the sheet below. The frictional stability resulting from the large surface area is augmented by the frictional properties of the thicker base sheet.

Description

A MULTI-PANEL NOTEPAD This invention relates to å desk-top notepad divided up into detachable panels.

The invention is a large desk-top notepad of many sheets of paper, arranged in sub-areas of either equal or unequal size, the sub-areas delimited by rectilinear lines of perforation, so enabling each of the sub-areas to be detached easily from the larger main pad area, after notes have been written into the sub-area. The sub-area is called a padlette in this document.

Whereas it is known that small pads of paper in rectangular or square format, presented in blocks of multiple sheets one on top of the next, are used for making impromptu notes (for example whilst holding a telephone conversation), and these are normally torn off the block prior to writing the note, it is recognized that these suffer the major disadvantages that a) they slide over a desk surface whilst being written on b) they are too small to retain in place unless the hand not holding a pen happens to be free. (this hand usually holds the telephone hand-set in practice) Such disadvantages make the use of such pads very inconvenient.

It is also known that larger sheets of pads are employed for writing random notes whilst using a writing desk, and some of these notes might be as the result of receiving telephone messages. Using such a larger notepad area for telephone messages would avoid the problems found with small pads, but would be inappropriate for short notes, would be inconveniently large, and would waste paper.

The advantages of the innovation are that brief notes can be written without risk of the paper sliding uncontrollably, on a sub-area or padlette, which can then be detached easily by tearing along the perforation line, (as stamps are detached from a sheet) so creating a note area appropriate and convenient for short notes.

According to the present invention, there is provided a large area of paper suitable for a desk-top application, with many sheets attached together along one edge by adhesive, each sheet of which being divided into a number of sub-sheets which can be detached one from another using perforations arranged in a rectilinear grid arranged along two sets of parallel lines mutually orthogonal to each other.

A specific embodiment of the invention follows, by way of example, described by reference to the enclosed drawing Figure 1.

Figure 1 depicts a desk-top note pad (1) comprising many sheets of plain paper, adhering together by the use of adhesive along one edge (2), each sheet being perforated by horizontal rows (3) and vertical rows (4) of perforations. It also shows one padlette having been detached (5) by tearing along the perforations just as a postage stamp might be detached from a sheet of stamps. The entire pad is backed by a sheet of thicker material having a high coefficient of friction (6).

As a typical practical example embodying the innovation is a main pad comprising a number of sheets, perhaps 30, arranged in a vertical stack adhering by means of a film of adhesive applied to the edges, the sheets each conforming to the European ISO A2 paper size, approximately 594 millimetres wide by 420 millimetres high, each sheet sub-divided into padlettes of dimensions 118 millimetres by 70 millimetres, such that the main pad comprises 6 rows of 5 padlettes per row, the padlette areas being delimited by perforations of 0.1 millimetres slot width, 5 millimetres long, at 6 millimetre pitch, forming a grid of horizontal rows and vertical lines of perforations. A thicker material with a high-friction surface acts as a backing sheet on which all the others are stacked.

Figure 2 shows a detail of one of the perforation patterns which could be used to realise the invention.

Claims (6)

1. A note-pad comprising sheets of paper of identical size, of such size and material properties as will prevent, by means of friction, the paper moving across a desk-top whilst a user is writing there-on using only one hand, the sheets arranged one on top of the other, consolidated by use of bonding adhesive along one edge, the area of each sheet being divided into sub-areas separated one from another by perforations, enabling the sub-areas to be detached from the main sheet.

2. A note-pad as claimed in Claim 1, having the further feature that the main pad can be printed so that subareas are formatted with wording for specific purposes such as messages to enhance their usefulness.

3. A note-pad as claimed in Claim 1 and Claim 2, whereby the feature described in Claim 2 can be in the form of advertising material, either covering the whole of the main pad, or on individual sub-areas.

4. A note-pad as claimed in Claim 3, whereby the message may be printed on one side on the main pad, whilst the other side is blank for notes and messages.

5. A note-pad as claimed in Claim 3, whereby the message is printed in feint ink on the same side as the areas assigned for notes and messages, so as to be unobtrusive, yet legible.

6. A note-pad as claimed in Claim 1 and Claim 2 in which the main pad sheets are treated with a chemical coating, a prior art, so as to react to the pressure of a pen or pencil point when writing, and thereby to leave a permanent copy of the message on the sub-area beneath.