US3125984A - Feeding bottle capable of indicating temperature - Google Patents

Description

March 24, 1964 HIROSHI OKUYAMA 3,125,984

FEEDING BOTTLE CAPABLE OF INDICATING TEMPERATURE OF THEREIN CONTAINED MILK FOR THE UNWEANED CHILD Filed March 20, 1962 2 Sheets-Sheet 1 fl/ros/r/ Okayama,INVENTOR 2/ March 24, 1964 HIROSHI OKUYAMA 3,

FEEDING BOTTLE CAPABLE OF INDICATING TEMPERATURE OF THEREIN CONTAINED MILK FOR THE UNWEANED CHILD Filed March 20, 1962 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 7 4 ATTORNEY United States Patent 3,125,984 FEEDING BOTTLE CAPABLE OF INDICATING TEMPERATURE OF THEREIN CONTAINED MILK FOR TIE UNWEANED CHILD Hiroshi Okayama, 21 Hisamatsu-cho, Nihonhashi, Chino-Ward, Tokyo, Japan Filed Mar. 20, 1962, Ser. No. 181,126 Claims priority, application Japan Apr. 19, 1961 1 Claim. (Cl. 116-114) The present invention principally relates to improvements in the feeding bottle for feeding the unweaned child. Fresh milk or dried one dissolved, for feeding the unweaned needs to be given warm after being heated up to a certain adequate temperature. And such temperature was heretofore determined by helping, for example, to a thermometer if available, or the tactile feeling of the finger tip or the hand palm of a person having access to the feeding bottle, as there existed no feeding bottle made capable of indicating the adequate temperature. The determination was therefore often very unreliable as it simply depended upon the thermal feeling of a particular person having access to the feeding bottle and besides not free from influences of atmospheric or room temperature or other items; defects residing with the prior art feeding bottle and using significant undesirable influences upon feeding the unweaned.

The invention contemplates to remove such defects mentioned and has the main object in view to provide an improved feeding bottle made capable of visually or readable indicating temperatures of the heated milk therein contained any time when the bottle is used for feeding the unweaned.

Another object of the invention is to make it possible to have exact knowledge of desired temperature of milk in the feeding bottle by applying such materials as have melting points different from one another and property to change in phase for change in temperature, in a part of the wall of the feeding bottle body, materials each having distinct melting point and being opaque or translucent in solid phase prior to melting and transparent in liquid phase at melting temperature, along with markers each indicating of distinct melting temperature for each of the associated materials.

Another object of the invention is to facilitate to maintain the optimum temperature of the content of the feeding bottle by arranging means such that a temperature range is indicated including the optimum one and those slightly above and below said one.

Another object of the invention is to give means for clear visible colored indication of said adequate temperature in a fashion readily attracting attention.

Another object of the invention is to broaden the measurable range of temperature by making a vertical or horizontal arrangement of the series of said indicating means for temperature.

Another object of the invention is to broaden the measurable range of temperature by providing a plurality of series of said indicating means so as to avoid opportunities where measurement is often reduced impossible for improper amount of milk supply present.

An additional object of the invention is to secure said indicating means from influences of ambient temperature.

Another additional object of the invention is to provide a design for the feeding bottle free from possible difficulty in feeding the unweaned ascribable to the provision of said indicating means.

Other objects will become clarified as the invention is set forth in the following description.

As such materials as are opaque or translucent solids before melting and transparent liquids after melting may Patented Mar. 24, 1964 "ice be cited solid waxes, for example, parffin, Japan and other waxes.

As generally known, such materials as mentioned have properties of becoming transparent as they meet their melting temperatures and solidified and opaque or translucent at lower temperatures, their melting points being different from one another according to their varied composition. According to the invention, an appropriate selection may be made in those ones having melting points around 35 C., 40 C. and 45 C. specifically, based on the assumption that the judicious and adequate temperature of milk for the unweaned lies around 40 C. If it is concerned with materials of lower melting points and relatively transparent as solids, use may be freely made of any opacifier to be admixed to them.

In accordance with the invention, an exact knowledge of temperature of heated milk contained in the feeding bottle may be obtained by sealing pieces of parafiin wax materials of distinct melting points in series separately and together with associated markers for indicating distinct melting temperatures of such materials, in a suitable part of the bottle body and observing these markers through paraffin pieces as these melt. The arrangement or configuration of the series of indicating means may, for easier use of the bottle, be so made that the indicating means for adequate temperature is placed in the middle and those for lower and the higher one in the left and the right side of the means for adequate temperature or in the upper and the lower side, associatedly, considering the shape of the bottle or for other reasons.

A series of such indicating means, therefore, gives to know not only the standard temperature of heated milk for the unweaned, but also lower ones and those appearing upon later cooling besides those surpassing the standard and lower ones appearing upon later cooling: gives to know at a glance the under or the over heating of milk for the unweaned by the appearance and disappearance of associated markers in and from sight resulting from the melting and solidification of parafiin wax pieces.

Embodiments of the invention will be set forth in the following description with references being made to the appended drawing, in which FIG. 1 is a front view of a feeding bottle as an embodiment of the invention;

FIG. 2 is a longitudinal sectional view taken along line IIII of FIGURE 1;

FIG. 3 is a longitudinal sectional view of an embodiment of a modified form of the invention, as should appear along the same line mentioned of FIGURE 1;

FIG. 4 is a cross sectional view taken along line IVIV of FIGURE 1;

FIG. 5 is a cross sectional view of an embodiment of a modified form of the invention, as should appear along the same line mentioned of FIGURE 4;

FIG. 6 is an enlarged cross sectional view of another embodiment of the invention provided with a vacuum chamber as a means for preventing influences of external temperature upon the indicating means;

FIG. 7 is a fragmental front view of a feeding bottle as another embodiment of the invention provided with a strip of transparent adiabatic material for protecting the indicating means from influences of external temperature;

FIG. 8 is a cross sectional view taken along line VIIIVIII of FIGURE 7; and

FIG. 9 is a front view of a feeding bottle as an embodiment of another modified form of the invention pro vided with a plurality of series of indicating means.

Any selection may be possible according to the invention in structural material as well as shape of the feeding bottle, contour and arrangement or configuration of the markers, sealing place of the parafi'ins in the bottle body, and other items, as to answer the inventive design,

3 for example,bottle body 11 may be made of synthetic resin withparafiin pieces 12, 13 and 14, of different melting point from one another, separately and horizontally placed in order in that part of the bottle wall facing substanJti-ally about the central region of the milk supply, viz, the most suitable point for seeing the temperature of the milk. As, however, the bottle is not always filled up with milk, it is practical to consider three roughly divided portions of the milk supply and provide a plurality of series of such sealed paratfin pieces to let each of theseries 12, 13 and 14 and 12", 13 and 14 in addition to said 12, 13 and 14, be associated with such divisions as illustrated in FIGURE 9, so that determination or" the temperature of the milk may any time 'be feasible despite possible small milk supply present in the feeding bottle.

There are many ways of sealingparaffin pieces 12, 13 and 14 in the Wall offeeding bottle body 11, and should be of synthetic resin, they may be sealed with success either during the molding operation for the bottle by use of a properly contoured die or mold in prescribed configuration, or after the molding operation in those chambers that are specifically molded during the operation. And, in sealing these pieces, it is left to the choice of the manufacturer of the alternatives either simply to thicken, or inwardly or outwardly to protrude, in due dimensions, that part of the bottle wall in which they are sealed as illustrated in FIGURES 2 and 3.

As to the markers, they are desired to be selected from those materials that are rich in such property as to distinguish themselves most cleanly to the eye, as they have for purpose to inform the melting of their associated parafiin pieces when these melt on observation from without through paraflin; therefore, colored markers should be preferred, e.g. yellow 15, blue 16 and red 17, or letter or character markers.

The provision offeeding bottle body 11 withsuch markers 15, 16 and 17 and their associated p araflin wax pieces, is made by placing the markers in the closures parafiins are sealed in, or directly coloring those associatedparts 18, 19 and 20 of the bottle body during the molding operation for this, or placing markers and 16 and 17 in close contact withsuch parts 18, 19 and 20, or in any other way as should answer embodiment in any form of the invention. The sealing of the markers and the associated parafiin wax pieces inbottle body 11 is recommended to be made as to constitute an adequate artistic design which is simply desirable for any goods used in feeding the unweaned child, for example, so as to give, it may be suggested, figures of flowers, animals in simple outline and soon.

As the in-sealed parafii-n wax pieces mentioned above are desired to be most free from influences of external temperature, it may be pronounced more eiiective to provide a vacuum chamber in front of the series of in-sealed parafiins or a strip of transparentdiabatic material 22 instead there for isolating paraffins from the external world.

On the assumption that the adequate temperature of milk for the unweaned child is 40 C., sealparaffin wax piece 13, having this temperature for its melting point, in the central one of the series of the closures, together withblue marker 16, anotherpiece 12 having a lower temperature for its melting point, for example 35 C., done in the left one of the series, together withyellow marker 15, and another one 14 having a higher temperature for its melting point, for example 45 C., done in the right one, together withred marker 17.

Then, if fresh milk or dried milk dissolved, in such structurally designed feeding bottle for the unweaned is heated up to 36 C., pa-rafiin 12 completely melts to be transparent andmarker 15 may be seen from without in clear yellow giving to know the temperature of milk lying at 35 C.; similarly, the marker seen from without in blue the temperature of milk at 40 C. confirming the adequate one of the milk for the unweaned, and the red marker seen from without telling the over-heated milk at temperature 45 C. It is therefore any time possible to give milk at desired temperature to the unweaned by observing the markers each only visible at the melting temperature of the particularly associated paraffin.

Red marker 17 visible for over-heating will disappear as its associatedparaffin 14 becomes opaque for cooling, and the purpose in view may be satisfied when the milk is given during the time thatblue marker 16 remains visible for adequate temperature being reached and present.

The present inventive feeding bottle having such struc tural design as far described, ofiers no particular technological requisites in manufacturing nor possibility of inviting markable increase in price relative to any of the prior art, and is quite free from any trouble in feeding ascribable to the structural design of the inventive bottle.

What I claim is:

A baby feeding bottle comprising an elongated hollow cylindrical vessel constituted by a side wall and an end wall and being open at the other end, a closure for the open end, said side wall having a plurality of series of spaced recesses in the outer surface thereof arranged in a line perpendicularly to the axis of the vessel, heat re sponse and indicating markers in said recesses, each marker including a strip of par-aflin similar in shape to its respective recess and seated therein, another strip of a shape similar to the shape of the paraflin strip juxtaposed outwardly of the par-afiin strip, and a third strip of sealing material juxtaposed outwardly of the other strip sealing the paraffin and other strip in the recess, the par'afiin strips having different Inciting points, said other strips having colors of contrasting color whereby coacting with the paraifin strips the temperature of milk contained in the vessel is indicated.

References Cited in the file of this patent UNITED STATES PATENTS 1,535,536 Macdonald Apr. 28, 1925 2,222,067 Chaney et al Nov. 19, 1940 2,517,604 Smith Aug. 8, 1950 2,614,430 Ballard et a1. Oct. 21, 1952 2,983,247 Greenspon May 9, 1961 3,004,679 Steierman Oct. 17, 1961 3,047,405 Lanier July 31, 1962

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