Outdoor decorative lighting fixtures are a common and vaunted part of many holiday celebrations. In particular, such lights abound during the season leading up to Christmas. In the modern day, many different variations of such lights have become popular, including many variations such as multicolored light strings, plain white lights, “icicle”-style lighting strings, blinking lights, and the like.
One (1) major problem with such traditional decorative lighting fixtures is the time and effort associated with their installation. Common light strings are often stored indoors for the majority of the season, leading to difficult to untangle messes. Furthermore, the impermanent nature of the mounting means often means that the lights are installed insecurely and the mounting fixtures must be reinstalled every year. The high-hanging nature of many such decorative assemblies can lead to even more increased time of setup as well as increase risks. The process of tearing down the lights becomes and equally time consuming endeavor.
Various attempts have been made to provide decorative lighting systems. Examples of these attempts can be seen by reference to several U.S. patents. U.S. Pat. No. 6,485,161, issued in the name of Whitaker et al., describes an outdoor decorative lighting system. The Whitaker system provides a series of customizable tracks for the installation of permanent lighting fixtures.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,843,583, issued in the name of Winter, describes a device for storing and displaying decorative light strings. The Winter device consists of hemispherical light housings rotatably mounted within hemispherical tracks. This allows a user to open and close the lighting portions by rotating them within or without the tracks.
Additionally, ornamental designs for a decorative lighting fixture exist, particularly U.S. Patent Nos. D 452,581 and D 486,602. However, none of these designs are similar to the present invention.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives, each of these references suffer from one (1) or more of the aforementioned disadvantages. Many such apparatuses do not allow a user to easily remove lights for indoor storage. Also, many such apparatuses do not provide an unlimited range of simple user customizability with regards to length and directions of a mounting track. In addition, many such apparatuses do not allow a user to store lights in a tangle-free manner which allows for very simple and quick reinstallation of the lights in the future. Furthermore, many such apparatuses do not provide simple and stable securing mechanisms for a mounted light string which is both retrofittable and adaptable to custom light strings. Accordingly, there exists a need for a track-mounted exterior decorative lighting system and apparatus without the disadvantages as described above. The development of the present invention substantially departs from the conventional solutions and in doing so fulfills this need.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds