GB2252352A - Releasable clip with latch retainer - Google Patents

RELEASABLE CLIP DESCRIPTION This invention relates to a releasable clip for gripping thin articles such as paper, clothing, photographic films and the like. Clips of the invention can be provided, for instance, at each end of a garment hanger to display items such as swimwear or underwear and this particular use of the invention will be discussed and described hereafter to illustrate the invention. It will be appreicated however that the invention is not to be restricted to this particular use.

Garments are commonly displaced in retail outlets on re-usable plastic hangers which are detached by the retailer at the point of sale and kept for re-use.

Not only do these hangers have to be able to display the garment in an eye catching way but they must also be very inexpensive to manufacture and easy to use.

Garments such as underwear or swimwear are normally displayed on hangers which have clips at each end to grip the garment. For obvious reasons, the clips must be releasable and must not damage the garment.

Hangers with releasable clips at each end are known.

In one known hanger, the clip at each end comprises a pair of clip members joined by a hinge, the clip members being held together by a deflectable latching member to retain the clip in its closed condition in which it grips the garment. The latching member is normally resiliently biased into its closed locking position but is deflectable on the application of pressure thereto by a user to release the latching meber and allow the clip to be opened to release its grip on the garment. Clips of this type tend to be bulky in construction because the resilient tongue has to be of such a length and thickness that it can have the required strength and resilience to maintain the two clip members closed when gripping a garment therebetween.If the latching member is made very short in length, to provide a compact and thin clip member, the latching hook can only be deflected by a very small amount to engage or release the latch, so the latch may not have the required latching capability and furthermore, it can disengage if it is knocked accidentally which is obviously unsatisfactory. To overcome this problem, the resilient tongue has to be made as long and thick as possible to provide a satisfactory degree of movement for latching and unlatching and this results in a much greater distance being necessary between the two clip members and thus a much bulkier clip assembly.

In another prior art arrangement designed to grip a pair of socks, two clip members are hinged at one end and held together by a locking member on one of the clip members which has a series of detents on it and is biased into engagement with a tooth provided in an aperture in the other clip member into which the locking member fits . In this arrangement, the locking member is deflectable to release engagement between the tooth and the detents to release the grip of the clip members on the article therebetween.

This clip is complicated in construction as the locking member requires a separate part to bias it into engagement with the tooth and it is therefore more expensive to mould.

The prior art arrangements discussed above are all designed to grip fairly thick items of clothing so the clip members have to be fairly robust in construction and use a fairly long movable resilient latching member . For the reasons explained, it is not possible to miniaturize these clip assemblies to adapt them to clip thin items.

It is an object of the present invention to provide a clip which may be used on its own or can be incorporated into a garment hanger which overcomes or substantially reduces the above discussed problems and is inexpensive to manufacture.

According to the invention there is provided a releasable clip for clipping an article comprising first and second clip members, spacer means between the clip members and releasable clamping means operable to engage and press one clip member against the spacer means and thereby bend and tension it relative to the other clip member to grip said article when the clip is closed.

Conveniently, the clamping means includes a latch member engagable with said one clip member to tension it when the clip is closed. Preferably the latch member is fixed and non movable.

In a preferred embodiment, the spacer means comprises a pair of spaced supports not necessarily of the same height . These may both be provided on one clip member or alternatively one support can be provided on one clip member and the other support can be provided on the other clip member. Conveniently, the two supports are provided on either side of the latch member. It is also possible within the scope of the invention to provide a releasable clip which includes only a single support but this clip will only work if the thickness of the material to be gripped is greater than the height of said support.

Preferably, the latch member engages with an aperture in said clip member on one side thereof when the clip is closed. Suitably, the width of the aperture is slightly larger than the width of the latch member.

In order to obtain a thin clip assembly, one clip member is preferably slidable relative to the other to engage the clamping means and thereby tension said one clip member. In the preferred embodiment, the one clip member is slidable on the spaced supports.

Preferably, locking means are provided to prevent relative movement between the two clip members, the locking means comprising a raised portion on said one clip member which engages with one of the supports to lock said one clip member in position relative to the other when the clamping means are engaged.

In the preferred embodiment, said one support has an inclined surface thereon along which the raised portion can travel during sliding movement to release the clamping means. Alternatively, the locking means can comprise cooperating detent means provided on the latch member and the area of said one clip member engaged by the latch member.

The clip members are preferably connected to each other by suitable means such as a strap hinge. It should be noted however that the hinge is not an essential feature of the invention. The strap hinge is merely a simple way of keeping the two clip members together. The operation of the clip is not dependant on the action of the hinge although in the preferred embodiment, the hinge must be of a construction such that it will permit relative sliding movement between the two clip members.

In another embodiment of the invention, the clip members are pivotally connected to each other adjacent one end so that one clip member is rotatable or pivotable in a plane generally parallel to the plane containing the other clip member.

The clip is preferably moulded in one-piece either as an individual clip or as part of a hanger and is preferably moulded from a rigid plastic material such as polystyrene. Other rigid plastic materials could however be used.

A preferred embodiment of the invention will now be described, by way of example only with reference to the accompanying drawings in which: Figure 1 is a view of a disposable hanger incoporating a releasable clip in accordance with the present invention at either end thereof, Figure 2 shows the clip of Figure 1 in its closed condition with an article of clothing gripped between the two clip members and Figure 3 is a cross section of the clip shown in Figure 1 along the lines III-III Referring to the drawings, there is shown in Figure l a hanger comprising a hanger arm 1 with a hook 2 connected thereto which carries a display panel 3. A releasable clip 4 is provided at each end of the arm 1. The hanger is moulded from a plastics material in one-piece. The clips 4 are used to grip an article 5 shown in dotted outline.

Each clip 4 comprises a first clip member 6 connected by a strap hinge 15 to a second clip member 7. The first clip member 6 has an aperture 13 formed therein, the underface of one side of which has an inclined surface 19 therealong for reasons to be explained hereafter. The upper surface of the first clip member 6 is provided with a raised finger engaging portion 20 to facilitate sliding movement of the first clip member 6 relative to the second clip member 7 to be described hereafter.

The second clip member is provided with upstanding spacer means in the form of a first support 9 at the hinged end and a second support 10 spaced therefrom.

A latch member 11 projects upwardly from the second clip member 7 and includes its free end a hook 12 having an undersurface 22 shaped to engage the upper suface of the first clip member 6 along one edge of the aperture 13 therein. The upper surface of the hook 12 is bevelled at 21. A corresponding bevel 19 is formed on the undersurface of the side of the aperture 13 in the first clip member 6 engaged by the hook 12. The purpose of these bevelled surfaces 19, 21 will be explained shortly. It will be noted that the upstanding latch member 11 is inclined in a direction away from the hinge 15. An aperture 14 is formed in the second clip member immediately adjacent the latch member 11 having an edge wall 23 which is inclined to the vertical.

In order to clamp a garment 5 between the first and second clip members 6,7, the garment is placed on the second support 10 on the second clip member 7. The first clip member 6 is then pivoted in the direction of arrow C (see Figure 3) and the aperture 13 therein is fitted over the latch member 11 until the first clip member 6 is resting on the first support 9 and the second support 10. When it is in this position, edge surface 24 of the hook' 12 on the latch member 11 abuts edge surface 25 of the aperture 13 in the first clip member 6. In this condition, the first clip 6 member is planar and under no tension. In order to tension the clip and grip the garment 5, the user applies a downward pressure on the first clip member 6 and at the same time slides it in the direction of arrow A (see Figure 2).The effect of doing this is to bend the first clip member 6 towards the second clip member 7 to a degree such that the edge 25 of the aperture 13 engages under surface 22 of hook portion 12. During this movement in direction of arrow A, locking raised portion 16 on the first clip member 6 rides over the support 9 and locates on the other side thereof due to the cooperation between inclined surface 17 on the first clip member 6 and inclined surface 18 on the first support 9.

Although it is not clear from Figure 2 of the drawings, the first clip member is in fact bent slightly along its length and thereby tensioned and retained in its bent configuration by means of the hook 12 on the latching member 11. In the illustrated embodiment, the distance X between the upper surface of the second clip member 7 and the undersurface 22 on the hook 12 is designed to be less than the distance Y between the upper surface of the first clip member 6 and the upper surface of the second clip member 7 when a garment 5 is located therebetween. The difference in the distances X and Y ensures that when the garment 5 is clamped between the support 10 and the upper clip member 6, the upper clip member will always be bent in a direction towards the lower clip member 7 and thereby tensioned.

It should be noted that the distances X and Y just described and illustrated in the drawings apply only to the illustrated embodiment. Accordingly, different distances X and Y will need to be measured in clip members of a different configuration.

In order to release the clip, the upper clip member 6 is again subjected to a downward pressure by the user and moved in the direction of arrow B (see Figure 2).

This causes the inclined surface 17 on the locking raised portion 16 at the hinge end of the upper clip member 6 to ride up the inclined surface 18 on the first support 9 until such time as the raised portion 16 has moved forwardly beyond face 26 of the support 9. Once in this position, the hook 12 will have completely disengaged from the side edge of the aperture 13 in the first clip member 6 and the first clip member 6 can then be pivoted upwardly to release its grip on the garment 5.

Instead of providing locking means in the form of raised portion 16 which cooperates and engages with support 9 to prevent relative sliding movement between the clip members 6 and 7, the hook 12 can be formed with a pimple thereon which cooperates with a detent in the upper clip member 6 immediately adjacent the edge of aperture 13. This arrangement is not shown in the drawings. Similarly, the clip would work equally well if the hook 12 faced the other way and engaged with the edge of the aperture 13 nearest to the hinge 15.

The preferred embodiment just described relies on the first clip member 6 being initially supported on the supports 9 and 10 but then being bent towards the second clip member 7 and retained in said bent condition on engagement by the hook 12 to provide the necessary tension to grip the article 5. It is envisaged within the scope of the present invention that the clip could have only one support 9 at the end of the clip members 6,7 adjacent the hinge 15.

With such an arrangement, the clip could be dimensioned so that the first clip member 6 is still bent in a direction towards the second clip member 7 on engagement of the hook 12 but it would rely on the material 5 being of a thickness at least equal to the height of the second support 10 shown in Figure 2 and already described. In this embodiment, the second support 10 would be omitted but provided that the thickness of the material 5 in combination with the thickness of the clip member 6 i.e. distance Y was greater than distance X, engagement of the upper clip member 6 with the hook 12 would result in the clip member 6 being tensioned and thereby gripping the garment.