WO2000069309A1

WO2000069309A1 - A toothbrush having a spreading pilus section

Info

Publication number: WO2000069309A1
Application number: PCT/KR2000/000448
Authority: WO
Inventors: Hyo Moon Park
Original assignee: Hyo Moon Park
Priority date: 1999-05-14
Filing date: 2000-05-12
Publication date: 2000-11-23
Also published as: AU4618400A

Abstract

The present invention relates to a toothbrush designed to have a plurality of brush pieces formed by dividing a brush part into a small width, and an elastic expansion plate for combining the brush pieces together. The brush pieces are clustered together by straigtening apparatus during brushing, while spaced from each other by bending characteristics of an elastic expansion plate when they are not used, thereby facilitating drying and cleaning the brush pieces and hence resulting in a sanitary use of the toothbrush. Furthermore, the used brush piece with the worn brush hair can be replaced with a fresh one easily and economically, and one can have an individual toothbrush by varying the color of the respective brush pieces. Besides a plurality of brush pieces, an elastic expansion plate, and a straightening apparatus, three positioning sills can control the position of a slider in combination with protusions underneath the push button connecting with a slider via a connection bar. This embodiment is advantageous that the brush piece assembly is not swayed during brushing, and a straightening apparatus is conveniently manipulated by the push button with one hand holding a toothbrush.

Description

A TOOTHBRUSH HAVING A SPREADING PILUS SECTION

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

I. Field of the Invention

The present invention relates to a toothbrush and, more particularly, to a

toothbrush having a spreading pilus section, which is designed to have a

plurality of brush pieces formed by dividing a brush head part into a short

longitudinal segment. The brush pieces are clustered together by a

straightening apparatus for brushing the teeth, while spaced from each other

when it is not used, thereby facilitating drying and cleaning the brush pieces and

hence resulting in a sanitary use of the toothbrush.

II. Discussion of Related Art

A toothbrush is generally made from lengths of stiff hair densely fixed to a

brush part formed at the tip of a handle so that the wet brush part can hardly be

get rid of water perfectly by taking the toothbrush down forcefully with a hand

after brushing. In addition, the toothbrush is ready to maintain water in the

brush part due to frequent use and poor ventilation of a damp bathe room. An

experiment reveals that the toothbrush is an unsanitary daily necessary

because bacteria are easily propagated. The densely arranged brush hair is not easy to get rid of foodstuff dregs and

provides a good place for the propagation of bacteria. The related art brush is

also disadvantageous that the brush hair is broken or bent during the removal of

foodstuff dregs to shorten the use life.

The previous shortcoming was resolved by the former invention, which

provides a toothbrush having a spreading pilus section. The toothbrush was

designed to have a plurality of brush pieces formed by dividing a brush head

part into a short longitudinal segment. The brush pieces are clustered together

by a straightening apparatus for brushing the teeth, while spaced from each

other when it is not used, thereby facilitating drying and cleaning the brush

pieces and hence resulting in a sanitary use of the toothbrush and extended life

of the toothbrush.

The • former solution as configured as described above, however, is

associated with following problems:

1 ) A brush piece assembly, a plurality of brush pieces combining by an

expansion plate, is impossible to exchange partially when the brush hair of

brush piece is worn-out, because the brush piece assembly is fixed firmly as

one set of brush hair. Therefore it should be changed uneconomically as a

whole. 2) A slider, a plate for straightening the bent brush piece assembly

horizontally, is swayed in the case of brushing the teeth, because it is not

engaged concretely with brush pieces, resulting in loosing the coherence

between brush pieces and a slider.

3) It is not easy to straighten the bent brush pieces by one hand holding

toothbrush conveniently because a slider is located at the front of the brush

holder. Therefore this application is the improvement of the prior art to provide

more economical and more comfortable use of the toothbrush.

SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

It is an object of the present invention to provide a toothbrush having a

plurality of brush pieces formed by dividing a brush head part into short

longitudinal segments. The brush pieces combined by an expansion plate bent

due to its elasticity can clustered together horizontally by a straightening

apparatus during brushing, while spaced from each other when it is not used,

thereby facilitating drying and cleaning the brush pieces and hence resulting in a

sanitary use of the toothbrush.

To achieve the object of the present invention, there is provided a toothbrush

made from lengths of brush hairs planted in a brush head part of a toothbrush holder forming a handle, the toothbrush includes: a plurality of brush piece

formed by dividing the brush part into small width; an elastic expansion plate for

combining the brush pieces together; a slider for straightening the bent

expansion plate horizontally to cluster the brush pieces together; three

positioning sills for controlling the position of a slider in combination with a

protrusions underneath of the push button. The push button is connected with a

slider via a connection bar, which slides along the elongated guide pocket of the

toothbrush handle.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

The accompanying drawings, which are included to provide a further

understanding of the invention and are incorporated in and constitute a part of

this specification, illustrate embodiments of the invention and together with the

description serve to explain the principles of the drawings; In the drawings:

Fig. 1 is an exploded perspective view of a toothbrush according to the

present invention;

Fig. 2 is a partial view illustrating an example of a brush piece assembly;

Fig. 3 is a side view of a straightened brush piece assembly;

Fig. 4 is a side view showing a bent state of the brush piece assembly;

Fig. 5 is a vertical cross sectional view taken along the line A-A of Fig. 3; Fig. 6 is a cross sectional view taken along the line B-B of Fig. 3;

Fig. 7 is an exploded perspective view of another embodiment of the

present invention;

Fig. 8 is a side view of a straightened brush piece of another embodiment of

the present invention;

Fig. 9 is a partial view illustrating a example of a brush piece assembly of

another embodiment of the present invention; and

Fig. 10 is a vertical cross sectional view showing the combination of a push

button and protrusions.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE PREFERRED EMBODIMENT

In order to resolve the foregoing problems, it is an object of the present

invention to provide a toothbrush having each brush pieces individually mounted

into the mounting hole on the expansion spring plate. Therefore, each brush

pieces can be replaced piece by piece. A clustering slider connected with a

push button by utilizing the long connection bar, which moves along the deep

elongated pocket at the toothbrush handle, whereby the push button can be

manipulated by one hand holding a brush handle conveniently. Three

positioning sills can control the slider position along the elongated guide pocket

by means of a push button and protrusion. Accordingly, the swaying phenomena of a slider is disappeared due to tight engagement between

protrusions at the end of a connection bar and the positioning sills on inner side

wall of an elongated guide pocket.

Hereinafter, the preferred embodiments of the present invention will be

described in detail with reference to the accompanying drawings

Referring to Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, a brush piece fixing part having a fixing hole

(10) and an extruding rod (9) attached thereon is integrally formed at the front

end of a toothbrush holder (1 ) which forms a handle. The brush pieces (3') and

(4') are formed from an ordinary brush part divided into lines of brush hair (2) in

the width direction to have a small width. A transverse hole (7) and a guide

projection (12) are formed at the same position in a main body on the upper part

of the brush pieces (3') and (4'). Into the transverse hole (7) is inserted an

expansion plate (5), and into the guide projection (12) is inserted a slider (6)

having the guide groove (11 ). The brush pieces (3') and (4') are coupled with

each other to construct a brush piece assembly (3) in such a manner that the

expansion plate (5) is inserted into the transverse hole (7) piercing through the

main body. The expansion plate (5) is provided with a clamp (8) and a fixing

hole (10) into which the extruding rod (9) of the fixing part in the toothbrush

holder (1 ) is inserted. When the slider (6) is inserted into the guide projection

(12) of the brush pieces (3') and (4'), and slides along the guide projection (12),

the bent brush piece assembly is straightened horizontally as shown in Fig. 3. Thus the slider (6) combines the brush pieces (3') and (4') together densely and

firmly to form a set of brush part, so that the brush pieces (3') and (4') can be

used as an ordinary brush part with being apart form each other. After brushing,

one moves the handle connecting with a slider to the rear end of the toothbrush

holder (1 ) to get the slider (6) apart from the brush piece assembly in such a

manner that the expansion plate (5) becomes bent again due to its elasticity and

widening the space between the brush pieces (3') and (4') as depicted in Fig 4.

This widened space between the brush piece (3') and (4') lets airs in enough to

facilitate drying and cleaning the brush part. Fig. 5 and Fig. 6 are the cross

sectional view of a brush piece assembly taken along the line A-A and the B-B

of Fig. 3, respectively. Fig. 5 shows the engagement between brush pieces (3')

and (4') and a slider (6) by utilizing the guide projection (12) and the guide

groove (11). Fig. 6 denotes the engagement between the brush piece

assembly and a toothbrush handle (1 ) by utilizing the clamp (8) and an

extruding rod (9).

According to the present invention, the brush piece assembly can be firmly

fixed at the front end of the toothbrush holder (1 ) by means of a clamp (8) and

an extruding rod (9). The used brush piece assembly with worn-out brush hair

(2) of the brush pieces (3') and (4') can be replaced with a new one. In addition, one can have a personal toothbrush by varying the color of the respective brush

piece assembly.

Fig. 7 through 10 illustrates another embodiment of present invention. As

shown in Fig. 7, another embodiment provide similar toothbrush as shown in

previous embodiment having a spreading pilus section made from lengths of

brush hairs planted in a brush part of a toothbrush holder forming a handle; a

plurality of brush pieces formed by dividing a brush head part into a short

longitudinal segment; an elastic expansion plate to combine the brush pieces

together; a slider (6) for straightening the bent expansion plate horizontally to

cluster the brush pieces together; the connection bar (16) for connecting a slider

and the push button (15), and moving along the elongated guide pocket (17).

Furthermore, Fig. 8 shows the connection bar (16) having a stopper (18) at

front side and a protrusion (20) at the rear side. By the commination of the

protrusion underneath a push button and three sills of the inner wall of an

elongated guide pocket, one can control the three position of the slider. Three

positioning sills for control the slider position are including a usage-sill (19) for

fixing the brush pieces when toothbrush is using; a cleaning-sill (21 ) for

expanding the space of the brush pieces when it is drying and cleaning the

toothbrush; and a decomposing-sill (22) for disassemble the toothbrush, Due to

a spacing gap (25) between the upper part of brush handle and the push button, it is possible to move to three different sill positions by pressing and sliding

backward/forward the push button simultaneously. The slider combines the

brush pieces together densely and firmly to form a set of brush part, so that the

brush pieces can be used as an ordinary brush part without being apart from

each other. Fig. 10 is the cross sectional view of a push button assembly taken

along the line C-C. This embodiment is advantageous in that the piece

assembly is moved horizontally while surrounding the main body and therefore

the brush pieces are not swayed in any case, and it is easy to straighten the

bent brush pieces by one hand holding toothbrush conveniently by manipulating

the push button along the elongated guide pocket of the brush holder.

Fig. 9 illustrate another embodiment of present invention which the brush

piece is installed into the T-shaped expansion plate and fastening by a cap (13)

and mating piece (14). The present another embodiment provides a tooth brush

made from lengths of brush hairs (2) plated in a brush part of toothbrush holder

forming handle (1 ). The brush pieces (3') and (4') are formed from an ordinary

brush part divided into lines of brush hair in the width direction to have a small

width. A plurality of brush piece assembled by utilizing the curved expansion

plate (5), which is perforated with a T shaped mounting hole (7, 10) having a

large width (10) enough to let the brush pieces in at the mouth thereof and a

smaller width (7) in the middle thereof. Each of main body of the brush pieces is

introduced into the mounting hole. Then the mouth of mounting hole is covered with a cap (13), which is firmly engaged with the mating piece (14) through the

larger mounting hole to fix the brush pieces. In this embodiment, it is possible to

take all or some of the worn-out brush piece from the mounting holes and

replace them with fresh ones.

As described above, the present invention provides a very economical

toothbrush having a plurality of brush pieces to construct a brush part with brush

hair plated therein, the brush pieces being gathered together or straightened by

means of the expansion plate and the slider. The toothbrush can be kept with

the space between the brush pieces widened, while it is not used. This

facilitates rapid drying and cleaning of the toothbrush and makes it possible to

keep the toothbrush in a sanitary state. The toothbrush also makes it possible

to replace all or some of the worn-out brush pieces with new ones. The brush

piece assembly is moved horizontally while surrounding the main body and

therefore the brush pieces are not swayed in any case during brushing the

teeth, and easily move the slider to bent or spread brush pieces by one hand

holding toothbrush conveniently by manipulating the push button.

It will be apparent to those skilled in the art that various modifications and

variations can be made in the present invention without departing from the spirit

or scope of the invention. Thus it is intended that the present invention cover

the modifications and variations of this invention provided they come within the

scope of the appended claims and their equivalents.

Claims

What is claimed is:

1. A toothbrush having a spreading pilus section made from lengths of

brush hairs planted in a brush part of a toothbrush holder forming a handle; a

plurality of brush piece formed by dividing the brush part into small width; an

elastic expansion plate for combining the brush pieces together, and a slider for

straightening the bent expansion plate horizontally by sliding thereon toothbrush

holder to gather the brush pieces together, the toothbrush comprising:

a T-shaped mounting hole formed in expansion plate, the mounting hole

having a width enough to let the brush pieces in at the mouth thereof and a

smaller width in the middle thereof;

a guide projection formed on both sides of each main body of the brush

pieces, the main body being inserted into the mounting hole of the expansion

plate,

a cap for covering the mounting hole after insertion of the brush pieces into

the mounting hole, and firmly engaging with the mating piece through the larger

mounting hole; and

a connection bar for connecting the slider and a push button, and moving

along the elongated guide pocket therein the brush handle.

2. The toothbrush as claimed in claim 1 , further comprising: a connection bar having a stopper at the front side and a protrusions at the

rear side, wherein three positioning sills including a usage-sill, a cleaning-sill,

and a decomposing-sill of the side wall of the elongated guide pocket being

engaged with the protrusion for controlling the slider position; and

a spacing gap between the upper part of brush handle and the push button

making it possible to move to three different sill positions by pressing and sliding

the push button simultaneously.