Lid assembly

The current invention relates to a lid assembly which is suitable for mounting on a cup or other similar container. Some common examples of where such a lid assembly might be used are coffee cups used while driving a car (sometimes called "Trucker Cups"), thermos cans, picnic cups, cups for children, etc... The lid assembly can have different purposes. Three non limiting examples are to prevent spillage, to prevent heat from escaping the cup and to prevent unwanted foreign objects from getting into the cup.

Description of related art

Lid assemblies of this type are known in many different embodiments. A non limited collection of diverse examples of such lid assemblies are disclosed in US5540350, US6202877, US5772067, US5137168, DE3106736, GB9608016, DE2145362, DE1671007U, US1143656, DE1265943, US134586 and EP0301054.

However, the lid assemblies disclosed above all suffer from one or more dis- advantages. In some of the lid assemblies, the liquid can only be poured from a certain location via a spout. This means that the user must tilt the cup or container about one particular axis in order to get the liquid to pour correctly. In other cases, the user must apply his or her lips at a certain place in order to get liquid to reach his or her mouth correctly. In other examples, the user is forced to apply pressure to the lid assembly via his or her lips or to perform some particular action, for example manually opening a valve, in order to get liquid to flow. Still other examples, have lids which have openings which are permanently open and whereby heat can easily escape through the lid assembly. In other examples, the motion of the liquid in the cup is used to force the lid open. This makes the motion of the lid dependent on the level of liquid in the cup.

Summary of the invention

It is therefore a first aspect of the current invention to provide a lid assembly which is better than the ones disclosed in the prior art.

This aspect is provided in part by a lid assembly according to claim 1.

One of the advantages of the lid assembly according to the current invention is that liquid can be poured out of the lid assembly by tilting the cup about any axis. In this way, it is not necessary to find the "proper" location of a pouring spout before tilting the cup or container. This is especially useful with cups for drinking, for example coffee cups. The user can take the cup up to his or her lips and tilt the cup. The user is not required to first position the cup such that the drinking spout is aligned with the user's mouth. Another advantage is that the lid is automatically pivoted open when the cup reaches a certain angle. The motion of the lid is therefore not dependent on the motion of the liquid in the cup and the user is not required to manually open a valve in the lid or to apply pressure on the lid to force it to open.

Additional features and embodiments of the invention are provided in the dependent claims. Additional advantages are described in the detailed description provided.

It should be emphasized that the term "comprises/comprising/comprised of when used in this specification is taken to specify the presence of stated features, integers, steps or components but does not preclude the presence or addition of one or more other features, integers, steps, components or groups thereof.

Brief description of the drawings

In the following, the invention will be described in greater detail with reference to the embodiments shown in the enclosed figures. It should be empha- sized that the embodiments shown are used for example purposes only and should not be used to limit the scope of the invention unnecessarily.

Figure 1 shows a perspective view of a coffee cup having a first embodiment of a lid assembly according to the invention.

Figure 2 shows an exploded side view of the coffee cup and lid assembly of figure 1.

Figure 3 shows an exploded perspective view of the coffee cup and lid as- sembly of figure 1.

Figure 4 shows a cross section of the coffee cup and lid assembly of figure 1.

Figure 5 shows a cross section of the coffee cup and lid assembly of figure 1 when the coffee cup is tilted.

Figure 6 shows a schematic cross section of another embodiment of a cup and a lid assembly according to the current invention.

Figure 7 shows a schematic cross section of the cup and lid assembly of figure 6 when the cup is tilted away from the vertical.

Detailed description of the embodiments

Figures 1 -5 show different views of a coffee cup 1 and lid assembly 2 according to the invention. It should be noted that the term coffee cup is used in this

description, but it should be obvious to the person skilled in the art that a cup as shown in the figures could also be used for liquids other than coffee, for example hot chocolate, tea, etc...

The lid assembly 2 comprises a cup-like element 3 and a lid element 4. The cup-like element comprises a circular base portion 5 and a cylindrical side wall 6 portion. The circular base portion 5 has through going openings 7 which allow liquid to flow through the base portion. The side wall 6 has a first edge 8 which is free and a second edge 9 which is attached to the periphery of the base portion. A cross section taken through the side wall on a plane which is perpendicular to the centre axis (or longitudinal axis) of the side wall shows an annular and circular shape. It could also be said that the cup-like portion in this embodiment is symmetric about any plane which comprises the centre axis (or longitudinal axis) of the side wall portion. The lid element 4 is a relatively flat and thin disk like element which is arranged to fit inside the cylindrical side wall of the cup-like element. In the upright position of the cup, the lid element rests on the base portion. A rod 10 is attached to and extends from the lower surface of the lid element. The rod is arranged inside a hole 11 in the centre of the base portion. The rod is arranged such that it can pivot about the centre of the hole about many different axes which are perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the cylindrical side wall portion (or cylindrical portion for short). In a sense, the rod is prevented from significant axial displacements with respect to the base element, but is otherwise free to pivot freely. The rod 10 acts as a mass element with a centre of mass located un- derneath the base element. This will force the lid element to pivot when the lid assembly is tilted away from the vertical orientation shown in figures 1-4. Due to the arrangement of the mass element underneath the base portion, the lid will pivot in a direction which is opposite to the direction of tilt of the cup.

The rod has a groove 12 located below the base element. An o-ring 13 is arranged in the groove and prevents the lid element from "falling out" of the lid assembly when the cup is tilted past the horizontal.

It should be noted that the actual connection shown between the base portion and the lid element, is quite loose. The lid element is therefore allowed to both pivot and translate axially a small amount. In fact, in the embodiment shown in figures 1 -5, when the cup is pivoted, the lid element will pivot a small amount about the connection point between the base element and the lid element until the edge of the lid element comes into contact with the outer portion of the base element. As the cup is rotated further, the lid element will not pivot further. Once the cup is rotated past a certain amount, the lid element will pivot about the point of contact between the edge of the lid element and the outer portion of the base element. The actual centre portion of the lid element (or the portion of the rod which is arranged in the hole in the base element) will therefore pivot about an axis which is perpendicular to the longitudinal axis of the cup-like portion and simultaneously translate along the longitudinal axis of the cup-like portion. This is therefore not a pure pivot motion, but a combination of a pivot and displacement. This should however be understood as being within the scope of this specification even though in general, the connection between the lid element and the cup-like portion is described herein as being a pivotable connection with no axial translation. This terminology is used to simplify the description and claims of this application without limiting the scope of protection. The person skilled in the art should be able to understand this simplification.

It should also be noted that when the cup is returned to the vertical after pouring liquid out of the cup, a small amount of liquid will typically remain in the cup-like portion of the lid assembly. In order to allow this liquid to drain back into the cup, the lid element in the current embodiment is arranged with slight protrusions 14 on the bottom of the lid element. When the lid element

rests on the base element, the protrusions ensure that there is a slight gap 15 between the lid element and the base element through which the remaining liquid can drain back into the cup.

A circular seal 16 is arranged between the cup-like element and the cup in order to prevent liquid from leaking out of the cup at the connection between the cup-like element and the cup.

As can be seen by comparing figures 4 and 5, as the cup is tilted away from the vertical orientation shown in figure 4 and into the tilted orientation shown in figure 5, the lid pivots in a direction which is opposite to the direction of rotation of the cup. In this way the lid opens and liquid can pour out of the lid assembly at the lowermost point of the lid assembly. As can be seen from figure 5, only a small amount of rotation of the cup is required to open the lid. The amount of rotation is always the same, no matter how much liquid is in the cup which means that the user will experience the same behaviour of the cup, no matter the amount of liquid in the cup. The user will actually experience the cup with the novel lid assembly in the same was a normal cup without a lid assembly. However, the cup will retain heat better as well as prevent unwanted foreign objects from getting into the liquid in the cup.

The cup and lid assembly shown in figure 6 and 7 comprises a cup 100 with a lid assembly 101 arranged inside the upper part of the cup. In this particular embodiment the cup-like element 102 of the lid assembly has been inte- grated into the cup 100 itself so that the cylindrical portion 103 of the lid assembly is integrated with the side walls 104 of the cup. In this way, the cup- like portion is no longer detachable from the cup as is the case with the embodiment shown in figures 1 -5. In this case, the attachment means between the cup and the lid assembly is not separately identifiable, but is present in that the two elements have been integrated into a single element. A circular lid element 105 is pivotably arranged in a bracket 106. The surface 107 of the

lid element which is in contact with the bracket 106 is partially spherical as is the surface 108 of the bracket which is in contact with the lid element 105. In this way, the lid element can pivot about a point which is defined as the centre of the surface 107 of the lid element and the surface 108 of the bracket.

The lid element also comprises a mass element 109 which is attached to and extends from the bottom surface of the lid element. As can be seen by comparing figures 6 and 7, as the cup is tilted away from the vertical position, the mass element 109 pivots the lid element in a direction opposite to the direc- tion of rotation of the cup element. As the lid element rotates, channels 110 in the lid element are revealed which allow liquid to flow out of the cup past the lid element. The user can drink from the cup from the free edge 111 of the cylindrical portion of the cup-like element.

It should be mentioned that in the embodiments disclosed in this specification, the mass element has been formed as a rod extending from the bottom surface of the lid element. However, within the scope of the invention, the mass element could take many other forms. For example, the lid element could take the form of a half sphere where the centre of gravity of the half sphere lies below the point of rotation of the lid element.

While it is not shown in the figures, the lid element 105 could be arranged with damping means between the lid element and the bracket. In this way, rapid movements of the cup, will not result in movements of the lid element. This is advantageous when the cup is accidentally tipped over. The user can manage to right the cup before the lid element opens. However, when the user tips the cup, the lid slowly opens and liquid is released. There would be a slight delay between the user tipping the cup and liquid being released from the lid assembly, but this delay would be relatively small. Another advantage of an embodiment with damping means, is that liquid remaining in the cup- like portion of the lid assembly when the user tilts the cup back to the vertical

position will manage to drain back into the cup via the channels before the lid completely closes.

It should be noted that the embodiments described above are just two em- bodiments out of many which are encompassed by the teachings of the current invention. The person skilled in the art will be able to use the teachings of the current invention to arrive at other embodiments which are also covered by the scope of this application.

For example, in the first embodiment, the lid element is pivotably supported in a hole of a stiff base element in the cup-like portion. However, one possible example of how this could be changed within the scope of the invention is to incorporate the lid element into a flexible base element which bends when the cup is tilted away from the horizontal. A similar function is thereby achieved.