GB2462501A

GB2462501A - Card mounting strip

Info

Publication number: GB2462501A
Application number: GB0906285A
Authority: GB
Inventors: Philip Martin-Dye
Original assignee: Individual
Current assignee: Individual
Priority date: 2009-04-09
Filing date: 2009-04-09
Publication date: 2010-02-17
Anticipated expiration: 2029-04-09
Also published as: GB2462501B; GB0906285D0

Abstract

A display device for mounting greetings cards or similar sheet-form items comprises a strip that has clip elements 1b formed therein at intervals along the length of the strip. Each clip element comprises a tongue that may be resiliently flexed and which will resiliently grip and hold a greetings cards or similar with the card hanging from the clip element. The tongue may take various shapes. The strip can have weakened/thinned, eg scored, fold-lines/zones at intervals so that it can be rolled up or folded into a stack. Short lengths of strip may be connected together to form a longer strip by using the clip elements to inter-link strips.

Description

Card-Mounting Strip

Field of the Invention

The present invention concerns improvements in and relating to display devices for mounting cards or similar sheet-form items and is particularly, but not necessarily exclusively, for mounting greetings cards such as Christmas cards, postcards or birthday cards in an attractive and space-efficient manner.

Background to the Invention

In the UK the greetings card industry is estimated to have annual turn-over above one billion pounds sterling and many millions of pounds are invested every year in trying to develop ever more eye-catching innovative designs of card. However, despite the high numbers of cards sent and received in this country every year by virtually every house-hold there is inadequate provision for mounting and displaying cards and other than the use of string washing lines' indoors to hang horizontal arrays of cards, they are mostly stood on every mantle-piece, shelf and every other available flat space until there is no space remaining at which point they are pre-maturely' binned.

A number of people have over the years sought to address the problems with displaying Christmas cards or other greetings cards and there are a number of patent applications! patents on devices for displaying them.

Where these devices comprise mounting strips these use contact adhesive on the strip, eg GB 1,217, 327, US 2,042,672 or restrain the card by projections or sliding retainers above and below, eg US 2,278,695, US 2,532,132, GB 1 137 421, GB 3 142 818 and GB 2 309 901 or have cardboard sheets stitched to provide side-pockets as in GB 2129,296.

Only a few proposed mounting systems grip the cards. US 1,676,492 is arranged to do so and has a rack configuration where the grippers are also serving as shelves. GB 2 053 675 has complex grippers to hold cards out sideways.

Very few of these systems have actually made it to market and the display disclosed in GB 2,417, 201 is one of the few that has. It uses a VELCROTM s hanging strip with a plurality of counterpart VELCROTM tabs that each adhere to the back of a respective card. This is quite effective but not re-usable once the adhesive-backed VELCROTM tabs have each been allocated to a card.

Overall, the prior art systems collectively fail to provide a card display system that is versatile, simple to use, cost-effective and re-usable.

Summary of the Invention

According to a first aspect of the present invention there is provided a display device for mounting greetings cards or similar sheet-form items, the device comprising a strip that has a plurality of clip elements formed is therein at intervals down the length thereof that each comprise a tongue that may be resiliently flexed and which will resiliently grip and hold a sheet-form item such as a greetings cards or similar with the sheet-form item hanging from the clip element.

The card is suitably held substantially solely by the resilient grip of the clip alone or together with any barb-like formations on the clip element.

Preferably the strip is of plastics material and each clip element is formed therefrom. Each clip element of the device operates in the resilient gripping manner of a paperclip.

Preferably the clip elements lie initially in the plane of, or plane parallel to the plane of, the strip. Suitably the strip may be hung in a vertical orientation and has an upper in use end that is adhered, pinned, hooked or otherwise fixed or fastened to a wall or other surface.

Conversely the strip may be hung in a substantially horizontal or even diagonal orientation but preferably at least one of the clip elements is oriented downwardly, ie with its hinge portion, about which the tongue flexes outwardly, uppermost. Preferably all of the clip elements are oriented downwardly.

Suitably the tongue of each clip element is triangular or otherwise tapered from a hinge portion to a distal tip portion of the clip element.

Preferably the tongue of each clip element is arrow-shaped, having barb-like formations.

The strip may be flexible to be reeled! rolled up and may thus be as much as 1 m to 20m in length but must preserve the resilient flex capability of the clip elements. Alternatively or additionally the strip may be flexible to flexl fold primarily at a zone! fold line between clip elements so that it may be folded into a concertina-like stack for storage.

The strip may be coupled to other strips to extend its length and preferably the clip elements are used for inter-linking strips and are engaged clip element-to-clip element.

Whereas there are many point of sale hanging vertical strips for merchandise which have a moulded flat strip construction to hold small items in a column on the strip, these are designed to hold the merchandise by pockets, sockets or hooks/ projections that point upwardly. These are used in retail outlets across the land, but none are able to grip, clip or clamp sheet items such as cards by a resilient gripping tongue.

Brief Description of the Drawings

A preferred embodiment of the present invention will now be further described, by way of example only, with reference to the accompanying drawings, in which: Figure 1 is a front elevation view of the display device; Figure 2 is a side elevation view of the display device mounted to a wall; Figure 3 is a detail elevation view of the clip element of the display device of Figure 1; Figure 4 is a perspective view of the display device stored as a reel prior toorafteruse; Figure 5 is a perspective view of the display device in use displaying cards; Figures 6 to 9 are perspective views that show multiple lengths of display device strip coupled together to extend the length of the device; and Figure 10 is a view of the upper part of a display device strip illustrating three different examples of clip element.

Description of the Preferred Embodiment

Referring to Figures 1 to 4, the illustrated embodiment of the display device comprises a strip I of a resilient plastics material such as, for example, polypropylene. The plastics material and thickness selected is suitably such as is normally used in the manufacture of moulded plastics paper clips. Example dimensions of the strip 1 are im length, 3cm width, 2mm thickness although a wide range of alternative dimensions may be adopted.

The illustrated strip 1 is shown as being arranged to hang vertically and has a hanging aperture Ia at its upper in use end to receive a pin or nail or other fixing therethrough to fix the strip to a wall or other vertical surface w.

At spaced intervals of eg 3cm down the length of the strip I there are a series of clip elements 1 b each having the characteristics of a plastics paperci ip.

The strip's material and thickness characteristics may suitably differ from the norm for plastics paperclips insofaras it is a preferred feature of the strip I that it may be rolled! reeled up as illustrated in Figure 4. To that end the strip 1 may be formed with weakened/ thinned, eg scored, fold-lines! zones ic at intervals down the strip between the clip elements lb or otherwise be configured to flex sufficiently for rolling up or for folding into a stack, eg in the manner of a concertina.

For enhanced capture of the greetings card by the clip element 1, the configuration of the tongue I e of the clip element lb may be arrow-shaped with a stem lj terminating in a point if and with back-angled barbs Ig suitably having rounded tips 1 h as exemplified in Figure 3.

The tongue le may be pre-formed somewhat proud of the plane of the strip 1 and substantially plane parallel to it and suitably inwardly angled in the downward direction as shown in Figure 2 ( ie the tip if of the tongue le is closer to the plane of the strip I than much of the rest of the tongue le). Alternatively the tongue le may be formed co-planar with the plane of the strip 1 and is flexed by the user forwardly/ outwardly from that plane for insertion of a greetings card into the clip 1. In either case the tongue le is suitably surrounded by or backed by an aperture 1k through the strip 1.

As will be appreciated a great number of cards (eg up to about 33) can be hung on a im long strip 1 that has a 3cm pitch between clip elements Ib, though the user can select their preferred extent of overlap, if any, between vertically adjacent cards simply by not using every available clip element lb but selecting to use only alternate clip elements lb or missing out two or more clip elements lb before attaching each next card in the sequence.

Short lengths of strip may be connected together end-to-end to span expanses greater than the length of any single strip 1. The clip elements lb may be used for inter-linking strips 1, and they are preferably engaged clip element-to-clip element to clip and preferably also hook together when carrying a number of cards. Referring to Figures 6 to 9, these show such arrangements. Figure 7 shows such an arrangement where the tongue le' of an upper clip element Ib' of a lower length of strip 1' is inserted from behind into the aperture 1k of a lower clip element lb of an adjacent upper length of strip I to clip the strips 1, 1' together. Here the resilient grip of the s tongue le onto the tongue le' of the two inter-locked clip elements ib, Ib' provides the link between the two strips 1,1' so that the link may take the weight of cards hanging from the strips.

In an alternative and more preferred arrangement, shown in Figure 8, a lower clip element lb of an upper length of strip I is suitably inserted from behind into an upper clip element lb of an adjacent lower length of strip 1'. By inserting the tongue le of a lower strips clip element lb from behind through the aperture 1k of an upper strip's clip element Ib' the two can be effectively hooked together, the lower strip 1' being hooked to the upper 1 and thereby securely hung from it. Here the resilient grip of the tongues le, le' of the two inter-locked clip elements lb further strengthens the link between the two strips 1,1' so that it may take an even greater weight of a long train of cards hanging from it.

The hanging orientation of the or each strip I may be adjusted to the user's preference and need not just be vertical but could be horizontal or diagonal. The orientation of the clips is, however, preferably configured to be downwards, ie with the point if lowermost.

As will be readily appreciated, the arrangement of the present invention has numerous benefits over the relevant prior art including ease of use, versatility in positioning of cards, discrete design, ease of re-use and lower manufacturing costs relative to most of the art. Here we now have a display system for cards that should substantially fully meet the needs of consumers, resolving that ubiquitous problem of how to display large numbers of received greetings cards easily, attractively and space-efficiently.

Claims

Claims 1. A display device for mounting greetings cards or similar sheet-form items, the device comprising a strip that has a plurality of clip elements formed therein at intervals along the length thereof that each comprise a tongue that may be resiliently flexed and which will resiliently grip and hold a sheet-form item such as a greetings cards or similar with the sheet-form item hanging from the clip element.
2. A display device as claimed in claim 1, wherein a greetings card is held in use substantially solely by the resilient grip of the clip alone or together with any barb-like formations on the clip element.
3. A display device as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein the strip is of plastics material and each clip element is formed therefrom.
4. A display device as claimed in claim 1, 2 or 3, wherein the clip elements lie initially in the plane of, or substantially plane parallel to the plane of the strip.
5. A display device as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the strip is adapted to be hung in a vertical orientation and has an upper in use end that is provided with a fixing means or apertured to be pinned, hooked or otherwise fixed or fastened to a wall or other surface.
6. A display device as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the strip is adapted to be hung in a selected orientation and has at least one of the clip elements oriented downwardly in use, ie the tongue of the clip element flexes about a hinge and the hinge is uppermost and tip of the tongue is lowermost in use.
7. A display device as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the tongue of each clip element is triangular or otherwise tapered from a hinge portion to a distal tip portion of the clip element.
8. A display device as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the tongue of each clip element is arrow-shaped, having barb-like formations.
9. A display device as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the strip is flexible to be reeled/ rolled up.
10. A display device as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the strip is flexible to flex! fold primarily at a zone/ fold line between clip elements to be able to be rolled up or folded up for storage.
11. A display device as claimed in any preceding claim, as in use, wherein clip elements are used for inter-linking strips and are engaged clip element-to-clip element.
12. A display device substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to any suitable combination of the accompanying drawings.Amended Claims have been filed as follows: Claims 1. A display device for mounting greetings cards or similar sheet-form items in use holding a plurality of such items, the device comprising a strip that has a plurality of clip elements formed therein at intervals along the length thereof, the strip being of plastics material and each clip element being formed therefrom wherein each clip element comprises a tongue that may be resiliently flexed to open and close to resiliently grip and hold a respective said sheet-form item, a plurality of the clip elements having a said sheet-form item clipped thereby and hanging down from the clip element, the clip elements being oriented downwardly in use, ie the tongue of the clip element flexes about a hinge and the hinge is uppermost and tip of the tongue is lowermost in use.2. A display device as claimed in claim 1, wherein a greetings card is held in use substantially solely by the resilient grip of the clip alone or together with any barb-like formations on the clip element.3. A display device as claimed in claim 1 or 2, wherein the clip elements lie initially in the plane of, or substantially plane parallel to the plane of the strip.4. A display device as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the strip is adapted to be hung in a vertical orientation and has an upper in use end that is provided with a fixing means or apertured to be pinned, hooked or otherwise fixed or fastened to a wall or other surface. *,*5. A display device as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the tongue of each clip element is triangular or otherwise tapered from a hinge portion to a distal tip portion of the clip element.6. A display device as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the tongue of each clip element is arrow-shaped, having barb-like formations.7. A display device as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the strip is flexible to be reeled/ rolled up. * 108. A display device as claimed in any preceding claim, wherein the strip is flexible to flex/ fold primarily at a zone/ fold line between clip elements to be able to be rolled up or folded up for storage.9. A display device as claimed in any preceding claim, as in use, s wherein clip elements are used for inter-linking strips and are engaged clip element-to-clip element.10. A display device substantially as hereinbefore described with reference to any suitable combination of the accompanying drawings.11. A method of displaying greetings cards comprising providing a display device for mounting greetings cards, the device comprising a strip that has a plurality of clip elements formed therein at intervals along the length thereof, the strip being of plastics material and each clip element being formed therefrom wherein each clip element comprises a tongue that may be resiliently flexed to open and close to resiliently grip and hold a respective greetings card, the clip elements being oriented downwardly in use, ie the tongue of the clip element flexes about a hinge and the hinge is uppermost and tip of the tongue is lowermost in use; fixing the strip at an upper end to a wall or other surface; and flexing open the clip elements and inserting into each a greetings card so that the clip element resiliently closes and clips the greetings card thereby with the greetings card hanging down from the clip element,. *Ss. * * * S S S. S * a * 0e * S