Stowable cooler

Abstract

Stowable Cooler with insulated walls, resealable mechanical devices, a stowing medium, and an access lid. A preferred embodiment includes the insulated walls having a soft or semi-rigid construction. The lower edges of the insulated walls are permanently secured to the stowing medium forming a flexible bond. The side edges of the insulated walls each feature at least one half of at least one resealable mechanical device. The lower edges of each resealable mechanical device are secured to the stowing medium. The stowable cooler has a stowing mode and a usage mode. The stowing mode is true when the sealable mechanical devices are unsealed, and the usage mode is true when the sealable mechanical devices are sealed. The stowing medium is of sufficient volume to house the insulated walls while in stowing mode in a plurality of overlapping flats.

Description

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION [0001] This invention relates generally to the field of insulated coolers and more specifically to a stowable Cooler. [0002] The present invention generally relates to the field of portable coolers that are commonly used by the public as beverage or food coolers. Such coolers are used to keep items hot or cold for an extended period of time by insulating them from the surrounding ambient environment. [0003] On today's market there are mainly two types of portable coolers: hard-side coolers and soft-side coolers. Hard-side coolers are commonly made of hard plastic such as blow-molded or injection-molded plastic parts. Their construction is rigid, providing good durability. However, such coolers can be cumbersome, somewhat of a risk to young children due to their hard surfaces, their design characteristics limited because of the manufacturing restrictions of plastic parts, and their volume fixed. Soft side coolers are generally made of flexible materials su...

AI Technical Summary

Benefits of technology

[0008] Another object of the invention is to provide a stowable cooler that is easy to fold, repeatedly, even with a lot of insulation.

[0009] Another object of the invention is to provide a stowable cooler that folds better, smaller.

Problems solved by technology

However, such coolers can be cumbersome, somewhat of a risk to young children due to their hard surfaces, their design characteristics limited because of the manufacturing restrictions of plastic parts, and their volume fixed.

Standard coolers occupy a lot storage space which can be a significant inconvenience particularly for people that live in the city where access to storage can be difficult, at best limited.

However, this prior art does not provide for well insulated construction which results in poor performance while in use.

U.S. Pat. No. 6,736,309 B1 to Frank E. Westerman describes a variant of the same design, where again, the prior art does not offer good insulating properties from the surrounding ambient air.

Folding thick layers of materials onto themselves can be tricky as the material will resist such flexing; this also limits the amount of insulation that can be incorporated in the design.

Furthermore, excessive bending or long-term folding of the soft-side material will result in permanent deformation over time.

Other prior arts do not provide for such structural base at all.

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