Assignment #10: Beerbrella

So for this patent, I imagine the inventor loved to be out at the beach, relaxing, and drinking a beer.  But while he was sun tanning, he didn’t want his beer to do the same.  So instead of having his ice cold bottle of beer sitting in direct sunlight causing its temperature to rise, he came up with the idea to invent a shade for this bottle of beer. 

As you can see by the diagram shown, the idea of the invention is pretty straightforward.  There is an umbrella type shade attached to a pole that has a C-shaped clamp to it.  The clamp goes around the bottle and causes the shade to be over the beer.  With that, your beer is now in the shade and staying out of the way of the sun’s warmth. 

For this patent, I want to take a closer look at how the inventor developed the idea.  In the patent document, the inventors reference 16 other patents to distinguish just how novel their idea is.   The one that comes closes to denying this patent for similarity to a prior art is to the beverage shader.  Looking further into that patent, there is only a slight difference that the inventors of the beerbrella made.  The beverage shader was only the use of an umbrella to shade a drink whereas the beerbrella uses a coozie or other beverage insulating materials to keep the beer cold as well.  The beerbrella not only keeps the warm away, but also keeps the coolness in the beer container.  It’s not the most obvious or most needed invention in the world, but it’s still a patent.  I’m more than positive there is someone using this as we speak. 

Check back for my next post about another wacky invention.  Thanks!