The following background information may present examples of specific aspects of the prior art (e.g., without limitation, approaches, facts, or common wisdom) that, while expected to be helpful to further educate the reader as to additional aspects of the prior art, is not to be construed as limiting the present invention, or any embodiments thereof, to anything stated or implied therein or inferred thereupon.
Generally, prescription drugs are dispensed by licensed pharmacists who manually count out the number of pills pertaining to a particular prescription and place them in an appropriately labeled container. Typically, pill and medicine bottles are used to store and dispense the pills. Drug companies often ship pills in bottles having screw-off caps, and pharmacies often repackage smaller numbers of pills into bottles, such as standard cylindrical brown bottles as are known in the art.
It is known that such bottles, whether from a drug manufacturer or pharmacy; often have safety mechanisms such as arrows on the cap and the bottle which must be lined up before the cap can be removed. Another common safety measure is requiring a user to push down on the cap before turning in order to remove the cap from the bottle. These safety mechanisms are often designed to ensure that children cannot open the bottles and swallow the pills inside, which, of course, can be very dangerous as they can choke.
Consequently, the safety mechanisms thwart adults from opening the bottles. The elderly, especially those with arthritis, or whose hands have lost their agility, and the uncoordinated amongst us often must struggle to open such pill bottles, or find a younger individual to help, which is sometimes ironically, a child or a teen who can open the bottle for us. Even healthy people struggle to open these caps with one hand, as the closed end of the bottle slips against a ground surface.
Other proposals have involved stabilizing medicine bottles. The problem with these bottle support devices is that they do not allow for one-handed manipulation of the cap. Also, the bottle often accidently detaches from the supportive device. Even though the above cited bottle support devices meet some of the needs of the market, a bottle support shoe with suction base that receives a closed end of a medicine bottle and creates a suction effect to stabilize and inhibit slippage of the medicine bottle, and to hold the bottle upright, and also inhibits slippage of the bottle against a ground surface by creating the suction against the ground surface is still desired.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds