TODAY’S PATENT – BODY PROTECTIVE VEST

The Body Protective Vest was invented Martha Taylor-Varney (Barrington, NH) on the 14^th of November, 1995, bearing patent number US5465423A.

The present invention relates generally to body protective clothing, and more particularly, to body protective vest including strategically located foam pads for protecting the upper body from impact injuries. Various protective devices have been developed for use in protecting the wearers during sports activities. For example, baseball catchers have long been provided with well padded vests. However, such devices are generally cumbersome, unwieldy, heavy or interfere with performance and thus have not achieved widespread use, particularly amongst sports involving substantial body movements such as equestrian sports. The present invention overcomes the aforesaid and other problems of the prior art by providing a protection vest comprising a front and back panel joined at the shoulders and sides as in the case of prior art protective vests. However, unlike prior art protective vests, the foam inserts on the front panel are set at a diagonal. Setting the front foam panels at a diagonal permits the vest to fold along the stitched crease lines, thus enabling the wearer to assume various postures without causing the vest to ride-up.