Site News  |   Monitor Keywords  |   Monitor Archive  |   Organizer  |   Account Info  |

Inflatable structure for covering sport utility vehicles, boats and the like

Inflatable structure for covering sport utility vehicles, boats and the like description/claims

This application claims priority from U.S. Provisional Patent Application No. 60/900,104 filed Feb. 8, 2007 entitled Inflatable Structure for Covering Sport Utility Vehicles, Boats and the Like.

This invention relates to the field of inflatable structures including tents, and in particular to an inflatable structure useful as an event venue, portable temporary shelter, or for covering from the elements mid-to-large sized vehicles including sport utility vehicles, boats, cars and the like.

Inflatable tents for use in camping are known in the prior art and are sold commercially by for example Airzone Recreation Products of Kelowna, British Columbia, Canada. Such tents typically replicate camping tents available commercially which rely on bent fibreglass poles for their support structure and instead substitute inflatable poles which, when bent, provide the supporting framework for the exterior fabric skin or canopy of the tent over which a so-called fly sheet may be mounted. In the other extreme, large tents are known in the prior art for use such as by the military for providing field barracks, field hospitals and various depot facilities, such tents often being made of canvas and supported on tubular metal-pole supporting structures.

Applicant believes that a commercial need exists for relatively large pneumatically inflatable tent-like structures which are larger than conventional recreational camping tents and smaller than military-style field tents. It is believed that such structures will find commercial acceptance and use by the owners of large for example sport utility vehicles, boats, trailers, and other wheeled vehicles or towables which ordinarily would require a large garage or shed for their safe storage and which are often not housed in, for example, conventional residential homes as not having extended garage facilities. Also applicant believes that commercial acceptance and use of such larger pneumatically inflatable tent-like structures may include those in the field of portable corporate sponsorship pavilions for example for use in trade-shows, portable pneumatically inflatable recreational and professional sports shelters for sheltering equipment, non-engaged players, or sickly or wounded players on for example the side-lines of a sports field.

What is required, and is an object of the present invention to provide, is a relatively larger pneumatically inflatable structure which may be readily transportable in that, when collapsed, the structure is not exceedingly heavy or overly bulky so the structure may be transported in for example the aforementioned sport utility vehicles, in mini-vans, or in the beds of pickup trucks and the like, and for example may be carried by two adult males to a convenient location for their use, and wherein the structure may be erected using for example a high volume, low pressure air compressor running for example from the twelve volt power source of the vehicle used to transport the collapsed structure.

In the prior art applicant is aware of the following issued patents illustrating aspects of the state of the art in pneumatically erectable structures including tents:

U.S. Pat. No. 2,591,829 which issued April 1952 to Katzenmeyer et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 2,830,606 which issued April 1958 to Daugherty; U.S. Pat. No. 3,145,719 which issued August 1964 to Johnson; U.S. Pat. No. 3,899,853 which issued August 1975 to Wertman; U.S. Pat. No. 3,999,333 which issued December 1976 to Amarantos; U.S. Pat. No. 4,068,418 which issued January 1978 to Masse; U.S. Pat. No. 4,197,681 which issued April 1980 to Holcombe; U.S. Pat. No. 4,271,642 which issued June 1981 to Karr; U.S. Pat. No. 4,709,718 which issued December 1987 to Nichols; U.S. Pat. No. 4,766,918 which issued August 1988 to Odekirk; U.S. Pat. No. 4,819,389 which issued April 1989 to Kihn; U.S. Pat. No. 4,825,892 which issued May 1989 to Norman; U.S. Pat. No. 4,876,829 which issued October 1989 to Mattick; U.S. Pat. No. 4,901,481 which issued February 1990 to Seeley, Jr.; U.S. Pat. No. 4,918,877 which issued April 1990 to Dutka; U.S. Pat. No. 5,005,322 which issued April 1991 to Mattick et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,007,212 which issued April 1991 to Fritts et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,122,400 which issued June 1992 to Stewart; U.S. Pat. No. 5,205,086 which issued April 1993 to Heim; U.S. Pat. No. 5247768 which issued September 1993 to Russo; U.S. Pat. No. 5,421,128 which issued June 1995 to Shapless et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,570,544 which issued November 1996 to Hale et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 5,636,478 which issued June 1997 to Chen; U.S. Pat. No. 5,987,822 which issued November 1999 to McNiff et al.; U.S. Pat. No. 6,014,982 which issued January 2000 to Strevey; and U.S. Pat. No. 6,263,617 which issued July 2001 to Turcot.

In keeping with the above-stated object, and in keeping with the various other objects of the present invention, in one aspect, the inflatable structure according to the present invention provides for not only efficiency in transportation and efficiency in pneumatically inflating of the supporting frame work, but also efficiency in manufacturing in that the inflatable structure according to the present invention may be modularly constructed as better described below.

In summary, the pneumatically inflatable structure according to the present invention may be characterized in one aspect as including two adjacent pairs of bowed and criss-crossed pneumatic tubes mounted at their ends to a base wherein each of the two pairs of tubes form a frame defining a downwardly concave substantially domed enclosure, and a further vault-forming bowed pneumatic tube mounted to the base so as to be substantially vertical and sandwiched between adjacent ends of the two adjacent pairs of tubes. The two adjacent pairs of tubes and the vault-forming tube define an elongate open enclosure including the substantially domed enclosures and an inter-connected vaulted passage-way.

In one embodiment, at least one end of the elongate open enclosure defines a doorway whereby an elongate wheeled vehicle or elongate towable wheeled device may be driven or otherwise translated into and parked along the interior of the open enclosure.

A pair of substantially domed canopies are mountable or mounted to the two adjacent pairs of tubes so as to substantially cover the pair of substantially domed enclosures, and a passageway canopy is mounted to the pair of substantially domed canopies so as to substantially cover the vaulted passageway. The combined canopy including the domed canopies and passageway canopy cover the elongate open enclosure.

A canopy doorway may be formed in the combined canopy to provide access into the elongate open enclosure. A door may be mounted to the canopy adjacent the doorway for selectively releasably closing the doorway.

The base may be a substantially planar sheet, for example rigid for a more permanent structure, or flexible for a more temporary and portable structure, or may merely be sections or segments, rigid or flexible, each individually affixed or mountable to the ground to secure the ends of the tubes by the hinged flaps 27. As illustrated, the sheet is continuous so as to cover substantially entirely all of a floor of the elongate open enclosure.

• Provisional Patent
• Utility Patent

• What Is a Patent?
• What Is a Trademark or Servicemark?
• What Is a Copyright?
• Patent Laws