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  Infant garment systemUSPTO Application #: 20070033700Title: Infant garment system Abstract: An improved infant garment formed from ventral and dorsal panel portions that are attached at the shoulder to a collar and that include outwardly extending sleeves. The ventral and dorsal sleeve portions incorporate respective seam edges, which are releasably joined to establish an easy donning and removal configuration. Parents can thus more easily remove and replace the infant garment when threading the limbs of a delicate and or writhing newborn into and out of the sleeves of the garment. In various alternative configurations, the improved infant garment is also adapted with the traditional front opening seam for appearance purposes only, and or for added functional benefit. In yet other various modifications, the posterior edge of the improved garment can be adapted to releasably attach to trousers, and to alternatively extend posteriorly beyond the legs to enable the bottom edge to be completely closed about the feet of the infant. (end of abstract) Agent: Anthony P. Venturino Stevens, Davis, Miller & Mosher, L.L.P. - Washington, DC, US Inventor: Jennifer Gonya USPTO Applicaton #: 20070033700 - Class: 002111000 (USPTO) Related Patent Categories: Apparel, Body Garments, Vests, Underwear, Infants' The Patent Description & Claims data below is from USPTO Patent Application 20070033700. Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims
TECHNICAL FIELD [0001] This invention incorporates various fields of technology and is specifically configured in specific embodiments to improve the state of the art of the infant garment industry, including for purposes of example but not for purposes of limitation, the easy donning and removal infant apparel and related fields. BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0002] Parents have long been tasked with adorning their infant children with clothing and apparel repetitively each day. While the paradigms and technology for designing and manufacturing such apparel has remained largely unchanged for some time, more than one attempt has been made to improve the state of the art. Some efforts have sought better materials that are easier to clean. Other efforts were aimed at improved manufacturing methods. Still others' activities were directed towards improving the functionality and appearance of infant and child garments and apparel. The instant invention is mostly relevant to the latter category. [0003] This category of improved functionality and appearance has included a number of attempts that were limited to improving the appearance and or ease with which an infant can be adorned with such garments and apparel. One such effort is documented in U.S. Pat. No. 5,621,917 to Howsden, which is limited to a sack-type infant care garment adapted with many gaps to improve ease of use with neonatal infants. In its various forms, the '917 Howsden garment is limited primarily to use in controlled, neonatal care environments. In these limited circumstances where temperature is often closely controlled, the garment incorporates hook and loop fasteners positioned with gaps there between, which creates interstices that can create drafts of air as the infant moves about within the Howsden '917 garment. [0004] Other prior attempts such as U.S. Pat. No. Des. 364,725 to Farnsworth are adapted for more aesthetic purposes and in a two-piece shirt and pant configuration. Still others include more conventional shirt and pants arrangements such as those described by Turney in U.S. Pat. No. Des. 465,316. Both adaptations must be adorned and removed through conventional methods: the upper portion is pulled over the head, the arms and legs are threaded into the sleeves and pant legs. [0005] Various unitary garment designs have also seen variations in recent years and include infant overalls such as that illustrated by Knoefel in U.S. Pat. No. Des. 438,364. Less conventional child garment designs have also been subjected to change as can be understood with review of U.S. Pat. No. 400,688 to Federspiel, which appears to be restricted to an infant garment that is possibly used only for purposes of bathing, cleaning, and or changing the clothes of the infant. While the Knoefel '364 overalls offer little improvement over previous attempts in the way of ease of use, the Federspiel '688 garment has only limited use and is not adapted to be worn for extended periods of time. [0006] As those having skill in the relevant arts may be able to comprehend, the prior art infant clothing articles have many shortcomings in their individual respects. For example, the Howsden '917 garment will not have utility outside controlled neonatal care environments in view of more comfortable and less drafty alternatives. The Farnsworth '725 and Turney '316 garments offer little in the way of improved removal and replacement on infants. [0007] Despite many different designs and myriad attempts at advancing certain aspects of the state of the art of infant clothing, apparel, and garments, what has continued to be needed but ignored in the industry and fields of art of infant garments is the fact that it is often difficult, inconvenient, and challenging to change, adorn, and remove the clothing of an infant. These problems are even more pronounced today, when parents are constantly on the move to meet the many multi-tasking demands of parenting, which can daily include food shopping, healthcare visits, schooling, out-of-home childcare, social visits, and the need to travel about with an infant according to schedules and demands of other children in the family. [0008] All the while, most infants continue to require changes of diapers and clothing many times a day, often while out of the home and usually in the most inconvenient of places including in an automotive child car seat, a public restroom, the home of someone who does not have any of the child care amenities such as a changing table, or outside at a ballpark while attending a game of an older sibling. [0009] What has continued to be needed in these circumstances, but completely unavailable, is an improved infant garment that is easier to adorn and remove from an infant, but which can be adapted for use with the plethora of infant garment, apparel, and clothing designs and articles. Additionally, the preferred improvements are most desirably configured to be incorporated into summer, spring, fall, winter, and indoor and outdoor infant clothing articles. Even more importantly, the improved garment should overcome the shortcomings experienced in having to very carefully thread the often wildly waving arms and legs of infants into the narrow confines of the sleeves and pant legs of present day infant garments, such as those described in the noted prior art. [0010] An improved infant garment technology that can be of more utility in adorning, removing, and changing the soiled clothes of infants in even the most inconvenient of places would be most preferred, especially if such technology can be incorporated into the most desirable fashions more often preferred by parents. Such an improved technology would be more readily accepted and of preferred utility if it could be used in circumstances that include having to effect an immediate change of soiled clothes in an automotive car seat as well as other equally inconvenient locations. These desirable improvements should be especially focused on improved ease of use but should also avoid injecting any economically unviable increased costs, and should not unduly complicate the manufacturing process or create any impediments to incorporation with the most preferred aesthetically pleasing and fashionable designs for infant wear. [0011] The instant invention and its many possible alternative preferred embodiments are specifically directed to overcoming the many shortcomings of the prior art that persist, while vastly improving ease of use. This is accomplished without any undue increases in the cost to manufacture. Further, the improvements contemplated by the instant invention are easily adapted for use with all previous infant apparel and garments without any adverse impact or consequence to the design, manufacture, and utility of legacy clothing articles. [0012] In particular, the instant invention and its various embodiments contemplate configurations that are suitable for use with indoor and outdoor seasonal wear and that be of considerably improved utility and functionality in a variety of settings and circumstances. The instant invention accomplishes its new and novel improvements in the state of the art, without unacceptable modification to the presently acceptable manufacturing, use, and life cycle costs, and without increased difficulties in the adorning, removal, and changing of such infant garments and apparel. SUMMARY OF INVENTION [0013] In its most general configuration, the present invention addresses the problems in the art and advances the state of the relevant technology with a variety of new features and capabilities that markedly improve traditional infant garments. Although the instant invention is discussed and illustrated in the context of an upper body jacket type of garment, the invention extends to full body and lower body garments, which can suffer from the same short comings of prior art garments that are difficult to adorn on the delicate and writhing limbs of newborns and young infants. [0014] With the implementation of the instant invention, parents and childcare workers can more easily adorn and remove clothing from their children and charges even with very fragile newborn bodies, and as the target moves continuously with excitement. In one of its many preferred configurations, an improved infant garment includes ventral and dorsal panel portions that are attached at the shoulder to a collar and which have outwardly extending sleeves. [0015] The ventral and dorsal sleeve portions preferably include respective seam edges, which are releasably joined to establish an easily donned configuration that can also be removed with much less effort and attention than with legacy garment configurations. In this way, parents can quickly remove and replace the infant garment with a reduced set of challenges than is usually experienced with traditionally more cumbersome garments. [0016] In the many possible alternative and preferred configurations, the improved infant garment may be further reconfigured to incorporate the traditional front opening seam that releasably joins the right and left, or dextral and sinistral front or ventral portions. This embodiment can be either for appearance purposes only, and or for added functional use. [0017] The preferred embodiments of the instant invention also contemplate further modified configurations wherein the posterior edge or waist proximate edge of the improved garment can be adapted to releasably attach to trousers. In the alternative or even more preferably, the posterior edge or edges can be adapted to be longer than usual and to extend posteriorly below the legs and feet. In this arrangement, the bottom edge can then be partially or completely closed about the legs and feet of the infant for further comfort, warmth, or preference. [0018] The preferred and alternatively preferred embodiments according to the principles of the invention may also incorporate a dorsal panel portion that is made with a dorsal posterior or lower or waist edge, and an opposite and anterior collar and shoulder portion. Oppositely extending dorsal sleeve elements are also preferably included, which terminate in cuffs distally from the shoulder portion. Further, the opposite dorsal sleeve elements each extend to and are defined with a dorsal seam edge. [0019] In alternative arrangements and modifications to any of the preferred and optional embodiments according to the principles of the instant invention, the distal cuffs may be formed from unitary elastic-type materials. Additionally, instead of unitary cuffs joined to the distal ends of the sleeves, the cuffs may be alternatively formed by the material of the sleeve portions once the dorsal and ventral sleeves are joined at the under arm access seam, which upon joining thereby forms the cuff at the distal edge of the sleeve. [0020] Similarly, the preferred and modified embodiments of the improved garment also include a ventral panel portion that is joined and or releasably joinable to the anterior collar and shoulder portion. The ventral panel portion is also formed with a posterior ventral edge and oppositely extending ventral sleeve elements that each are defined with and extend to a ventral seam edge. This arrangement contemplates that the dorsal and ventral seam edges are preferably adapted to be releasably fastened together to thereby, when fastened, form an under arm access seam, which is typically joined and closed when the garment is adorned about an infant. [0021] In any of the preferred and varied versions of the inventive garment, the ventral or front panel portion can be adapted with a releasable ventral, medial seam that extends proximately from the anterior or upper collar to the lower posterior ventral edge. This releasable medial seam can be further modified with at least one releasable fastener, such as a plastic zipper-like strip of parallel rows, a metal zipper, buttons, hook and loop fasteners, and similar devices. Additionally, the optional or preferred releasable medial seam can be purely decorative and or entirely functional as may be desired. Continue reading... Full patent description for Infant garment system Brief Patent Description - Full Patent Description - Patent Application Claims Click on the above for other options relating to this Infant garment system patent application. ###  How KEYWORD MONITOR works... a FREE service from FreshPatents1. Sign up (takes 30 seconds). 2. Fill in the keywords to be monitored. 3. Each week you receive an email with patent applications related to your keywords. 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