Recently, attention has been directed toward increasing the difficulty of actuating lighters by persons normally not able to appreciate the potential danger of the flame. Individuals normally contemplated in these efforts are young children in the age category of five years or younger.
A conventional lighter includes a body containing a fuel reservoir filled with a liquefied and pressurized hydrocarbon fuel, a valve actuator lever, a striker wheel, a flint in frictional contact with the striker wheel, and a fuel flow control valve in fluid communication with the fuel reservoir. After the striker wheel is rotated against the flint by digital manipulation to produce sparks, the valve actuator lever is depressed allowing gaseous hydrocarbon fuel to flow out of the reservoir through the flow control valve. The sparks then ignite the released fuel producing a flame. Such lighters are known in the art, and are commercially available.
It is relatively easy for the intended adult users to operate the conventional prior art lighters. It is desirable to increase the difficulty of use to limit the ability of young children under five years of age to operate such lighters. For this reason there are many proposed "child-resistant" lighters offered in the patent literature and on the market. Examples of such patents include U. S. Pat. No. 5,125,829; U.S. Pat. No. 5,002,482; U.S. Pat. No. 5,165,886; U.S. Pat. No. 5,090,893; and PCT Application No. WO 93/17282. Each of the disclosed devices has in common the fact that the child-resistant feature somehow acts to block movement of the gas fuel release mechanism to prevent operation of the lighter.
Other "child resistant" lighters incorporate a resiliently deformable guard member disposed radially above the striking wheel assembly. To operate the lighter, a user may assert sufficient pressure to depress the deformable guard before attempting to rotate the striking wheel assembly to produce sparks necessary to ignite the fuel that would be released after successful depression of the valve actuator. Examples of such lighters include U.S. Pat. Nos. 5,483,978 and 5,520,197 and WO 95/04247. Each of these disclosed devices has in common the fact that the child resistant feature increases the difficulty of rotating the striking wheel assembly. The disclosures of the '978 and '197 patents and WO 95/04247 are hereby incorporated by reference.