This invention relates in general to a headgear assembly and more particularly to the guard assembly mounted to the headgear assembly, which allows for enhanced vision for the user.
Various types of protective headgear assemblies are worn in different types of sports such as hockey, football, lacross, and baseball. The headgear assemblies can come in various shapes and forms and are often provided with a type of face guard. In general, these face guards can be a protective visor or cage. There are various disadvantages with the current available face guards as they often impair the vision of the user using the headgear assembly.
For example, due to the nature of most sports requiring protective headgear and that the headgear assemblies must fit snugly around the user""s head, the user often will perspire profusely from the head often resulting in impaired vision. Furthermore if the headgear assembly includes a protective visor, the perspiration will often cause fogging of the visor therefore impairing the user""s vision. Moreover impaired vision may result in the more injuries to the user since their vision is limited.
The user""s vision may also be impaired when the headgear assembly includes a face guard that is a cage. Typically the cage is mounted to the helmet portion of the headgear assembly and is usually painted. Traditionally the same colour of paint is used on both the outer surface and the inner surface of the cage. The colours that have typically been used have either been black or white. A disadvantage of using the painted cage is that the user""s vision is impaired when they look through the cage. Specifically, the user""s the line of vision is distorted by the painted lines or wires of the cage that the user sees when looking through the cage. The distortion may result in loss of peripheral vision and could cause injury or the inability to participate in the sport at the user""s optimum level.
Furthermore, most of the sports requiring these headgear assemblies are played in lighted arenas or during daylight. The lighting often causes glare on the face guards which results in the impaired vision of the user. To combat the glare, in the case of the cage, the paint colour used on both the inner and outer surfaces of the cage has been black. The black surface on the outside of the cage reduces the glare from the lighting. However, the black surface on the inside of the cage disrupts the user""s vision which results in impaired vision.
Conversely, the use of white paint on the outside surface does not reduce the glare from the lighting, yet may be less disruptive to the user""s vision if the surface the user is playing on is white as in the instance of hockey. If the user is playing on grass as in the case of lacross or football, the white inside surface of the cage will also disrupt the user""s vision.
Prior art headgear assemblies have been devised to address the some of the aforenoted problems. For example, U.S. Pat. No. 6,010,217 issued on Jan. 4, 2000 to Houston et al. This patent relates to an optically corrected shield for unitary lens eyeglasses or safety helmets. The shield is characterized by an optical centerline and a mechanical centerline, which intersect each other at an angle. The lens is oriented on the head of the wearer by a frame or helmet that maintains the lens in a position such that the optical centerline is maintained substantially in parallel to the normal sight line of the wearer.
Joslin et al. is the owner of U.S. Pat. No. 5,647,066 which issued on Jul. 15, 1997. This patent relates to an adjustable safety helmet visor that extends for protection for the face by providing a simple one-piece adjustable add-on visor that will fit a multitude of helmet configurations. The visor is formed of a pre-cut deformable synthetic resin material that is removably secured to the helmet by continuous bands of interengageable hook and loop material along its edges.
Smith, Jr. is the owner of U.S. Pat. No. 5,966,744 which issued on Oct. 19, 1999. This patent relates to a helmet apparatus including a head-covering assembly which has a top portion and a side portion extending downward from the top portion. A guard support is connected to the side portion of the head-covering assembly, and a guard assembly is connected to the guard support.
Thus a guard assembly for a headgear assembly having the ability to absorb light or reduce the glare from lighting on the outside surface, while enhancing the user""s vision by matching the inside surface of the guard assembly to the playing environment is desirable.
An object of one aspect of the present invention is to provide an improved guard assembly for a headgear assembly.
In accordance with one aspect of the present invention there is provided a headgear assembly for enhanced vision comprising of a guard assembly having an inner surface and outer surface. The inner surface may be covered with a vision enhancing substance, while the outer surface may be covered with a light absorbing substance. Preferably the guard assembly is mounted to a helmet.
Conveniently, the guard assembly may further comprise of a securing means, a support means and a mask member each having an inner surface with a vision enhancing substance applied to it and an outer surface with a light absorbing substance applied to it.
Preferably, the paint on the inner surface for enhanced vision matches the environment viewed by a user wearing the headgear assembly and the paint on the outer surface had light absorbing qualities.
In accordance with another aspect of the present invention there is provided a method of enhancing the vision of a user wearing a headgear assembly comprising of wearing a helmet with a guard assembly. The guard assembly may have an inner surface and outer surface with the inner surface having a vision enhancing substance and the outer surface having a light absorbing substance.
In accordance with a further aspect of the present invention there is provided the use of a headgear assembly comprising of a guard assembly having an inner surface with a vision enhancing substance and an outer surface having a light absorbing substance for use in hockey.
Advantages of the present invention are improved vision for the user as there is no fogging of the cage as seen with visors, the environment blends into the inner surface of the cage so that the user""s vision is not disrupted, improved peripheral vision during use of the headgear assembly, reduction of glare and reflected light as outer surface of the guard assembly has light absorbing properties.