FIELD AND BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION

Scissors are a hand-operated cutting instrument used for cutting various thin materials, such as paper, plastic, cloth, rope and wire.

There are many types of scissors and shears for different purposes. For example, shears used to cut metal or to trim shrubs must have very strong, sharp blades. Child ren's scissors, used only on paper, have dull blades and rounded corners to ensure safety.

Scissors used to cut hair, finger nails and toe nails must be very sharp. This creates a problem when the scissors are used by adults to trim babies' and children's finger and toe nails, as an accidental slip of the adult's hand may result in injuring the baby's finger.

US Patent No. 3,812,868 titled "GUARDED FING ER NAIL CLIPPERS" to Francis J. Keating describes a nail clipper having front or side guards for protecting the user from cutting the soft skin of his fingers or toes. The front guard member with a curved surface is adjustably coupled to the lower jaw member by a hold-down clamp. The side guards push back the skin around the sides of the nails. Clippers, however, may not be the preferred cutting instrument for trimming infants' finger and toe nails, for example some users may have difficulties in safely manipulating the narrow small levers because of poor finger dexterity, large fat fingers, arthritis etc, and poor visibility because clippers tend to obstruct the view of the nails to be cut. Such users will prefer to use scissors. However, the multiple adjustable guards for the clipper described in Keating are not suitable for the sliding action of scissor blades.

The need remains, therefore, for scissors capable of safe, accurate nail trimming. Embod iments described hereinbelow address this need. SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION

According to one aspect, an improved pair of scissors is provided, comprising two opposing and pivotally connected sharp-edged blades configu red to allow cutting a nail of a toe or a finger, wherein at least one blade comprises at least one guard configured to lie between a tip of the finger or toe and a bottom of the nail, when the finger or toe tip rests on a blade comprising a guard, and a tip of the nail is placed between the blades.

In some embodiments each guard su bstantially extends along a blade.

In some embodiment each of the blades comprises a guard.

Preferably, guards of a first blade oppose guards of a second blade, i.e. they face away from each other.

In some embodiments, each guard has a rounded profile.

In some embodiments, e.g. in some for cutting babies' nails, each guard has a height of approximately 1mm.

In some embodiments, e.g. in some for cutting ba bies' nails, each guard is approximately 1mm from a blade edge.

In some embodiments the blades are metal.

In some embodiments the guards are metal.

In some embodiments the blades are casted .

In some embodiments the blades are made of cold setting materials.

In some embodiments a distance between a base of the guard and an edge of a blade is variable.

For example, the guard is wave shaped.

In some embodiments guards are each on level or almost on level with an edge of said blades.

In some embodiments, e.g. in scissors for children, tips of the blades are blunt. Preferably, the blades are curved.

According to another aspect, a kit comprising at least one pair of the scissors above and at least one nail file is provided.

The kit may comprise at least one pair of the scissors above and at least one nail trimmer comprising: a compact motor comprising a mechanism capable of converting a rotation of a motor shaft to an oscillating action at a head, and a cushioned abrasive surface attached to the head configured to oscillate with a frequency and stoke that optimizes the trimming of the nail while not adversely affecting surrounding skin.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE FIGU RES

For a better understand ing of the invention and to show how it may be carried into effect, reference will now be made, purely by way of example, to the accompanying d rawings.

With specific reference now to the drawing in detail, it is stressed that the particulars shown are by way of example and for purposes of illustrative d iscussion of the preferred embodiments of the present invention only, and are presented in the cause of providing what is believed to be the most useful and readily understood description of the principles and conceptual aspects of the invention. In this regard, no attempt is made to show structural details of the invention in more detail than is necessary for a fundamental understanding of the invention; the description taken with the d rawing making apparent to those skilled in the art how the several forms of the invention may be embodied in practice. In d iscussion of the various figures described herein below, like numbers refer to like parts. The drawings are generally not to scale. In the accompanying drawings, Figure 1 illustrates prior art scissor blades;

Figure 2 illustrates improved scissor blades in accordance with a preferred em bodiment of the present invention;

Figure 3 illustrates a side cross-sectional view of the blades of the improved scissors shown in Figu re 2;

Figure 4 illustrates improved scissors in action in accorda nce with a preferred em bodiment of the present invention;

Figure 5 illustrates improved scissors in accordance with another preferred em bodiment of the present invention;

Figure 6 shows scissors with a wave shaped gu ide, and

Figure 7 depicts a sma ll handheld battery powered d evice that can trim nails after their being cut, without da maging the su rrou nding skin

DETAILED DESCRIPTION OF THE SELECTED EMBODI MENTS

Various embod iments of improved scissors for safe, accurate nail trimming are disclosed herein below. Em bodiments of the improved scissors comprise at least one guard placed upon at least one of the pivoted blades of the scissors.

In preferred em bodiments, the blades are extremely sharp and tension sprung - to increase the cutting and shearing tension only at the exact point where the blades meet. The hand movement (pushing with the thumb, pu lling with the fingers in right handed use) can add to this tension.

Reference is made to Figure 1 il lustrating prior a rt scissors 10 having scissor blades 12a and 12b pivotally coupled such that their sharpened edges 14a and 14b slide against each other when the hand les (not shown) opposite to the pivot are closed . Reference is made to Figure 2 illustrating an exemplary embodiment of improved scissors 100. Blades 112a and 112b have sharpened edges 114a and 114b similar to the prior art shown in Figure 1; however, blades 112a and 112b are provided with an elongated guard 116b (guard 116a cannot be seen in Figure 2) that runs along blade 112b on its outer side, adjacent to sharpened edge 114b. Elongated guard 116b preferably has a rounded profile and has a diameter of roughly one millimeter or any other diameter suited to guard a fingertip, as will be demonstrated below. Any other profile can be used for the elongated guard without limiting the scope of the present invention.

The fingernails should not be cut too little to prevent a ba by from hurting itself and others with extremely sharp nails; neither should they be cut too much, as the nail protect the finger tips and over cutting might injure the finger tips.

The distance 118b between sharpened edge 114b of blade 112b and elongated guard 116b may be fixed or alternatively adjustable and is preferably designed to provide cut fingernails having optimal lengths. In the embodiment shown in Figu re 2, distance 118b is fixed, and is approximately one millimeter.

Other embodiments may have other d istances and guard diameters or shapes to allow cutting the nails to optimal lengths, according to the size of the individual whose nails are cut, the nails of which fingers/toes are cut etc. Some embodiments may have more than one guard or guards with varying dimensions to suit various nails.

The elongated guard can be provided to the blade using different methods such as soldering, welding, adhering the guard to the blade, erosion or machining of the blade surface so as to form the guard, drop forging or casting of the blades. Those methods are provided only as exemplary methods and by no means limit the scope of the present invention. During manufacture, blanks of the blades are typically also trimmed to remove excess metal, hardened by rapid heating and cooling and tempered. The blade edges may be typically ground and polished as is known in the art. In order for the scissors to cut smoothly, the blades should meet at two points only. These two points are the swivel (the point where the rivet or screw connects the blades) and the cutting point. The cutting point moves from just beyond the swivel to the tip as the scissors are closed. The blades are prevented from meeting at any other points by giving them a slight horizontal and vertical curve away from each other during manufacture.

Reference is made to Figure 3 showing a side cross-sectional view of blades 112a and 112b of improved scissors 100. Elongated guards 116a and 116b are located on blades 112a, 112b respectively parallel and adjacent to edges 114a and 114b. Distances 118a and 118b between corresponding edges 114a and 114b and elongated guards 116a and 116b are also shown.

In some embodiments (not shown), the guards may be close to or level with the blade edges, to help prevent accidental injury from the sharp blades by baby hands etc.

Figure 4 illustrates improved scissors 100 in action in accordance with a preferred embod iment of the present invention. A human finger 30 having a fingertip 32 and a finger nail 34 with a nail tip 36 is placed between blades 112a and 112b of improved scissors 100 in order to cut off the edge of the nail.

Fingertip 32 is shown to rest on blade 112b such that elongated guard 116b lies between fingertip 32 and the bottom of finger nail 34, and nail tip 36 is placed beneath edge 114a and above edge 114b. In this position, nail tip 36 is ready to be cut by the pivotal action of sharp edges 114a, 114b of blades 112a, 112b. Elongated guard 116b prevents slipping of nail tip 36 from its optimal position, thus precluding accidental cutting or harming the delicate skin of fingertip 32 by both sharp edges 114a and 114b. Some embodiments will have blunt or 'round' blade tips for safety. Figure 5 illustrates improved scissors 200 in accordance with another preferred embodiment of the present invention. The Improved scissors 200 are shown to have

blades 212a, 212b with elongated guard/s 216a running respectively along and adjacent to the edges of the blade/s, and rounded blade tips 213a, 213b.

Figure 6 shows scissors 300 with blades 312a and 312b, edges 314a and 314b, and wave shaped guide/s 316a, that may afford improved grip and fit of the finger and finger nail.

Integrating elongated guards within scissor blades contributes to overall child safety in nail scissors which requires particularly sharp edges for cutting nails. Using the scissors presented herein forces the cushion of the finger slightly away from the sharp end of blades by the elongated guard.

Some embodiments have only one guard on only one blade. In preferred embodiments, both blades have guards, to allow safe use by both right-handed and left-handed people.

According to another aspect, the scissors are part of a kit that fu rther comprises other apparatuses for fingernail care, for example one or more nail files having abrading material of one or more coarseness, or referring to Figure 7, a nail trimmer apparatus that is a small handheld battery powered device 400 that trims nails without damaging the surrounding skin. A trimming action is driven by a compact motor at a predefined speed and torque and a mechanism converts the rotation of a motor shaft to an oscillating action at a head. A cushioned abrasive surface attached to the head oscillates with a frequency and stoke that optimizes the trimming of the nail while not adversely affecting surrounding skin. The device 400 is particularly useful in blunting babies' fingernails after being cut by the scissors, as the newly cut fingernails may be extremely sharp.

As shown the trimming method includes a trimming apparatus or device 401, which includes a variety of featu res. Such featu res include an oscillating surface 403. Such surface is mounted on a hand held member 405. The hand held member directs the oscillating surface to a nail 34 of an Infant's finger, which is on the infant's hand. The infant's hand 409 and hand held member are held by a pair of adu lt

hands 411, 413 such as those from the infant's mother or father. One hand holds and directs the hand held member while the other hand holds the infant's hand and finger.

Embodiments may be used to safely cut nails of babies, children, adults and animals. Sizes and distances described herein are for illustration only and should not be looked at as limiting.

The scissors blades are usually made of metal, preferably steel, preferably carbon steel. However, some embodiments may comprise zirconiu m oxide. The guards may be made of the same material as the blades, or of another matrial. The scissors are typically coated against corrosion. In some made embodiments, the blades or coatings further comprise nickel and/or chromium.

The scope of the present invention is defined by the appended claims and includes both combinations and sub combinations of the various features described hereinabove as well as variations and mod ifications thereof, which would occur to persons skilled in the art upon reading the foregoing description.

In the claims, the word "comprise", and variations thereof such as "comprises", "comprising" and the like ind icate that the components listed are included, but not generally to the exclusion of other components.