Shops offering textile articles and furs are exposed to the particular risk of shop-lifting. To obviate this danger, it has been known to protect by specific clips said articles which are offered for sale. The mentioned clips are connected via a cable to an electric monitoring device. Such clips contain a switch whose switch member which is depressed by textile or fur material clamped between the clip legs disappears in a recess of the opposite clip leg if the safety clip is released. If no pressure is exerted any longer on the key surface of the switch, an alarm is triggered at the monitoring device.
Experienced shop-lifters may overcome the system of such safety clips by introducing into the gap between the clip legs a relatively stiff plastic card which is added to the textile material. While the clip is subsequently opened, the plastic card assumes the duty of depressing the switch so that the safety clip together with the rigid disk or plate depressing the switch may be removed from the article to be protected without affecting the pressure exerted on the key surface of the switch.
In other words, the theft protection system does not notice that the safety clip has been removed from the article to be protected. Since it is possible this way to switch off the known safety clips by introducing simple plates or sheets, their effectiveness is strongly reduced because experienced shop-lifters know how to remove clothes from safety clip without interfering with the operation of the switch.
German Patent 29 12 008 discloses a safety clip comprising a switch mounted at each of the two clip legs. The actuators of the switch extend in parallel in mutually spaced relationship to overlap. The ends of the clip legs include bumps provided to be offset mutually so that a curve-shaped character is imparted to the textile web which is clamped by the safety clip. Unlawful manipulations cannot be excluded by this measure either because the actuators of the switches are accessible from the side and they may be depressed by flat objects so that the fabric web may be silently withdrawn between the actuators without a response of one of the switches.
In another known safety clip, the second clip leg includes a star-shaped pressure jaw pressing the clamped fabric web against the actuator of the switch. A flap mounted at the end of the second clip leg deviates the clamped fabric. There is again the possibility of sliding a flat object between the clip legs while the operative condition of the switch is maintained to remove the clamped fabric web unnoticed from the safety clip.
It is the object of the invention to provide a safety clip of the foregoing type by which it is not possible to keep the switch depressed by inserting material so as to withdraw the clamped fabric web without a respective response of the switch.
USPTO Backgrounds
USPTO Backgrounds