TECHNICAL FIELD OF THE INVENTION

In general, the present invention relates to backpacks and bookbags that are worn on the back of a person. The present invention also relates to toy plush characters that contain manually operated animatronics.

BACKGROUND ART

Many people, such as students wear backpacks to carry items to school, daycare facilities, camps, and other such locations. Students and parents prefer backpacks, because they hold a lot of material and leave the wearer's arms and legs free as they travel. It is also difficult for a person to misplace or accidentally lose a backpack, since it is strapped to the wearer's back.

Since backpacks are often worn by students and children, the backpack is often highly decorated in order for the backpack to be more appealing. Decorations can incorporate faces and plush characters into the backpack, so that the backpack appears to be a character on a back, rather than a bag. Such prior art backpack designs are exemplified by U.S. Patent No. 4,662,550 to O'Donnell and U.S. Patent No. 5,255,834 to Bendersky.

It is not unusual to place characters on clothing and/or commonly carried objects. For example, items, such as hats, mittens, shoes and lunchboxes are often formed into characters or are adorned with characters. In some designs, the characters are provided with lights, electronics, and/or movement mechanisms that enable a person to somewhat interact with the characters. By way of example, U.S. Patent No. 8,505,116 to Strong and U.S. Patent No. 8,863,318 also to Strong show systems that animate a character embodied in a hat.

A problem exists, however, when a manufacturer tries to add interactive features to a character on a backpack. A person wearing a backpack cannot see the backpack directly. It is therefore difficult for a person to control the unseen interactive feature. Furthermore, it is difficult for a person wearing a backpack to physically touch the backpack character directly. Rather, the only part of the backpack that can be conveniently touched are the shoulder straps that connect the backpack to a wearer's body. Additionally, adding interactive features to a backpack is further complicated by the fact that the backpack may contain one or more internal compartments that may be occupied by books, clothes or other secondary objects. These internal compartments and their contents further separate features of the backpack from the wearer of the backpack.

A need therefore exists for an improved backpack that has interactive features that can be selectively controlled by the wearer of the backpack, without having to touch the main body of the backpack and without regard for the contents of the backpack. This need is met by the present invention as described and claimed below.

DISCLOSURE OF THE INVENTION

The present invention is a backpack assembly.

The backpack has a bag with one or two shoulder straps. A character is affixed to the bag or is the bag itself. The character has at least one externally visible feature that can be selectively moved between a first position and a second position. The movement of the feature is performed by an actuator that is built into the character. The actuator operates to move the character's feature between its first position and its second position when activated by the person wearing the backpack. The person wearing the backpack assembly operates the actuators using a manually operated controller. The manually operated controller is positioned on at least one of the shoulder straps. Such a position is readily accessible to the person wearing the backpack assembly. A control umbilical interconnects the manually operated controller to the actuator.

The control umbilical, in the form of a pneumatic tube or a mechanical cable, is directed through the shoulder strap, across the bag, and to the actuators in the character.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

For a better understanding of the present invention, reference is made to the following description of exemplary embodiments thereof, considered in conjunction with the accompanying drawings, in which:

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an exemplary embodiment of a backpack assembly;

FIG. 2 is a front view of a character affixed to the backpack assembly and illustrating feature movement; FIG. 3 is a schematic showing a first embodiment for an animatronic system embodied by the backpack assembly; FIG. 4 is a schematic showing a second embodiment for an animatronic system embodied by the backpack assembly;

FIG. 5 is a schematic showing a third embodiment for an animatronic system embodied by the backpack assembly; and

FIG. 6 is a perspective view of an alternate exemplary embodiment of a backpack assembly.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION FOR CARRYING OUT THE INVENTION

Although the present invention backpack system can be embodied in many ways, only a few embodiments are selected for the purpose of illustration and description. The embodiments are selected in order to set forth some of the best modes contemplated for the invention. The illustrated embodiments, however, are merely exemplary and should not be considered limitations when interpreting the scope of the appended claims.

Referring to Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, a first backpack assembly 10 is shown. In this embodiment, the backpack assembly 10 contains a bag 12 that defines an interior compartment 14. As will later be explained, the bag 12 is an optional element in the construct. The bag 12 has a front panel 16, a rear panel 18, a top panel 20 and side panels 22. The interior compartment is interposed between the front panel 16 and the rear panel 18. The interior compartment is accessible through one or more zipper closures 24 that extend across the top panel 20 and into the side panels 22. This leaves sections 25 in the side panels 22, below the zipper closure 24 that are undivided.

When worn on the body, the rear panel 18 of the bag 12 rests against the back of the person wearing the backpack assembly 10. Shoulder straps 26 are affixed to the rear panel 18 of the bag 12. The shoulder straps 26 pass around the shoulders of a person wearing the backpack system 10 and hold the backpack system 10 in place. The shoulder straps 26 have a midsection 28 that pass around the front of the shoulders and are easily accessed by the hands of a person wearing the backpack assembly 10.

A character 30 is affixed to, or integrated with, the front panel 16 of the bag 12. The character 30 can be a plastic character. However, it is preferred that the character 30 have a soft plush construction. The character 30 can have any form and can be any licensed character, animal, or fantasy character. In the shown exemplary embodiment, the character 30 is illustrated as a plush penguin. Regardless of the character type selected, the character 30 contains some interactive features 32 that can be selectively moved by the person wearing the backpack assembly 10. The interactive features 32 include facial features, such as eyes, mouth, and nose, and body features such as arms, legs, wings, tail and antennae. The interactive features 32 caused to move by a person depend upon the particular features of the character selected. For example, an elephant character would have an animated trunk. In the illustrated embodiment, the selected character is a penguin with animated flippers 34. The flippers 34 have the ability to wave when activated by the person wearing the backpack assembly 10. The movement of the character's interactive features 32 are controlled by an animatronics system 36 that is integrated into the backpack assembly 10. The animatronics system 36 includes one or more actuators 38 and a corresponding number of manually operated controllers 40. The actuators 38 are integrated into the structure of the character 30 at the locations of the interactive features 32. The manually operated controllers 40 are attached to the midsections 28 of the shoulder straps 26. In such positions, the manually operated controllers 40 can be readily accessed and operated by a person wearing the backpack assembly 10. The manually operated controllers 40 are connected to the actuators 38 via control umbilicals 42. The control umbilicals 42 extend through the structure of the shoulder straps 26 and the structure of the bag 12 in order to interconnect the actuators 38 to the manually operated controllers 40. As will be explained, the control umbilicals 42 can be mechanical cables or pneumatic tubes. In order for the control umbilicals 42 to run between the actuators 38 and manually operated controllers 40, the control umbilicals 42 must run through a portion of the character 30 and into the side panels 22 of the bag 12. In the side panels 22 of the bag 12, the control umbilicals 42 must run through the undivided sections 25 of the side panels 22, below the zipper closure 24 of the bag 12. The control umbilicals 42 must then run through the shoulder straps 26 and to the manually operated controllers 40 at the midsection of the shoulder straps 26.

Referring to Fig. 3 in conjunction with Fig. 1 and Fig. 2, the details of a first type of animatronics system 36 are shown. The purpose of the animatronics system 36 is to selectively raise and lower the flippers 34 of the exemplary character 30. The character 30 has two flippers 34. Each flipper 34 is provided with its own actuator 38 and its own manually operated controller 40. In this manner, the two flippers 34 can be raised and lowered independently. In the show embodiment, each manually operated controller 40 is a compressible air bladder 44. The compressible air bladder 44 is sewn into the midsection 28 of the shoulder strap 26. When an air bladder 44 is manually depressed, it produces a small blast of air as air is displaced out of the air bladder 44.

Each compressible air bladder 44 is connected to a tube 46. The tube 46 serves as the control umbilical 42 that attaches the compressible air bladder 44 to the actuator 38. As the compressible air bladder 44 is pressed, it produces a flow of air that travels through the tube 46 and into the actuator 38. The actuator 38 contains a deflated pocket 50. The internal volume of the deflated pocket 50 is slightly less than the volume of air displaced by the compressible air bladder 44 when compressed. As such, when the air displaced from the compressible air bladder 44 enters the deflated pocket 50, the pocket 50 fully inflates. As the pocket 50 inflates, the pocket 50 straightens and stiffens. The pocket 50 is positioned at the bottom of the flipper 34. As such, when the pocket 50 inflates and straightens, the flipper 34 also straightens and rises. When the compressible air bladder 44 is released, the air exits the pocket 50 and returns toward the compressible air bladder 44. This causes the pocket 50 to deflate. The flipper 34 collapses and falls down. It will therefore be understood that by selectively pressing the compressible air bladders 44 on the left and right shoulder straps 26, the left and right flippers 34 on the character 30 can be caused to selectively rise and fall.

Referring now to Fig. 4, an alternate animatronic system 52 is illustrated. In this system, the actuators 38 are spring loaded levers 54 that rotate about a pivot 56 when pulled. The levers 54 are positioned within the flippers 34 of the character 30 and are used to raise and lower the flippers 34. The levers 54 are pulled using a cable 58. The cable 58 is the control umbilical 42 that runs to the manually operated controller 40. The manually operated controller 40 in this embodiment is a simple pull hoop 60 that enables a person to selectively pull the cables 58 in tension.

Referring to Fig. 5, another animatronic system 62 is illustrated. In this system, the actuators 38 are again compressible air bladders 64. However, in this embodiment, multiple compressible air bladders 64 are positioned on each of the shoulder straps 26. The compressible air bladders 64 connect with a corresponding number of actuators 66 using multiple tubes 68. In this manner, multiple interactive features 32 on the character 30 can be independently controlled. For example, a person can independently control arm, leg and mouth movements on the same character.

Referring to Fig. 6, an alternate configuration of a backpack assembly 70 is shown where there is no separate bag interposed between the character 72 and the shoulder straps 74. Rather, the character 72 itself is provided with a rear panel 76. One or more shoulder straps 74 connect to the rear panel 76. An optional internal compartment can be built into the structure of the character 72 for holding secondary objects.

The character 72 has interactive features 32 that can be selectively moved using one of the animatronic systems previously described. It should also be understood that the character 72 may only have one shoulder strap should it be preferred. What is of importance is that the character 72 is positioned over a wear's back and that the wearer has access to at least one shoulder strap to control the animatronic system within the character.

It will be understood that the embodiments of the present invention that are illustrated and described are merely exemplary and that a person skilled in the art can make many variations to those embodiments. All such embodiments are intended to be included within the scope of the present invention as defined by the claims.