Chairs and seats – Having detachably interfitting parts or components; i.e.,... – Interfitted back and bottom or back frame and bottom frame
Reexamination Certificate
1998-12-23
2001-05-01
Cuomo, Peter M. (Department: 3624)
Chairs and seats
Having detachably interfitting parts or components; i.e.,...
Interfitted back and bottom or back frame and bottom frame
C297S452550
Reexamination Certificate
active
06224160
ABSTRACT:
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates to a body supporting apparatus such as a chair, a sofa, a bed and a stretcher. In this specification, the word “body” means both a body of a human being and a body of an animal.
2. Description of the Related Art
A typical example of body supporting apparatus is a chair. The commonest technique used for giving a soft, comfortable touch to a chair's seat and seat back is to attach a thick cushion made of a sponge or urethane foam to the base plates of the chair's seat and the seat back.
In order to produce a chair which is comfortable to sit on, it is necessary to support the weight of a body uniformly by a large area of the seat and the seat back. In other words, the body should be prevented from being pressed only at particular points.
In this regard, a cushion tends to be easily flattened while being repeatedly compressed in use. The thus flattened cushion cannot properly disperse the weight of the body, thereby failing to provide an appropriate weight-supporting function.
In view of this, various methods have been proposed to improve the weight-supporting function of a chair. For instance, Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-open No. 4-118059 discloses an improved arrangement of a seat back. Specifically, it teaches that an outer member constituting a rear side portion of the seat back can be made of a flexible synthetic resin material. With such an arrangement, when a person leans on the seat back, the outer member is deformed elastically, thereby allowing the seat back to incline backward.
Generally, for providing an excellent rocking performance, it is necessary to utilize a large area of the seat back in order to equally support the load applied by the upper part of a person's body. To this end, particular portions of the seat back which support a greater pressure applied by the person's body should be arranged to deform to a greater extent than the other portions of the seat back. In other words, the seat back needs to be deformed suitably to fit the person's body. However, according to the arrangements disclosed in Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-open No. 4-118059, the rocking function of the seat back is provided only by the elastic deformation of the outer member while the seat back itself fails to perform appropriate deformation to fit the person's body.
Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 9-182643 teaches that a base member of a seat and a base member of a seat back are both hollow. Peripheral walls of these bodies are arranged to have a bellows-like configuration. In such an arrangement, weight-supporting function is provided by utilizing the elastic deformation of the bellows-like peripheral walls.
According to the arrangements disclosed in Japanese Patent Application Laid-open No. 9-182643, it is possible to obtain a better weight-supporting performance than by the arrangements of Japanese Utility Model Application Laid-open No. 4-118059. However, the former arrangements are disadvantageous in that the hollow bodies are difficult to precisely make from a synthetic resin material.
According to another example of prior art applied to a chair or a bed, use is made of a cloth which is spanned on a metal frame. However, a cloth tends to lengthen while being repeatedly used. Thus, a cloth is not used for a chair required to have durability.
According to still another example of prior art applied to a chair's seat, use is made of a seat supporting member having a net-like configuration. This seat supporting member, which is made of a synthetic resin by injection molding, is fixed to a frame and covered with a cushion. Such an arrangement is similar to that of a hammock, and the thus arranged seat supporting member tends to be excessively deformed, thereby failing to stably support the person's body. Thus, the above arrangement is not necessarily suitable for a chair to be used in an office for a long period of time.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
It is, therefore, a principal object of the present invention to provide a body supporting apparatus which can be readily assembled and is capable of offering excellent weight-supporting performance and good durability.
Another object of the present invention is to provide a body supporting apparatus arranged to be easily and firmly constructed.
A body supporting apparatus according to the present invention comprises an inner member for supporting a body and an outer member for supporting the inner member. The inner member is made of a synthetic resin and formed into a plate, so that the inner member is elastically deformed under a weight of the body. Further, the inner member includes end portions which are located on a right and a left sides of the body supported by the inner member. The inner member is attached to the outer member with the end portions held in a supported state so that the inner member is allowed to be elastically deformed under the weight of the body.
The inner member of the present invention is formed separately from the outer member. Thus, it is possible to produce the inner member precisely by e.g. injection molding. Further, the inner member is attached to the outer member in such a manner that the end portions of the inner member are supported by the outer member. Thus, the inner member can be elastically deformed under the weight of a person, so that the inner member fits the shape of the person's body.
Therefore, according to the present invention, it is possible to easily produce a body supporting apparatus which can fit a body well. Further, since the inner member comprises a plate, it will not be excessively deformed, which differs from the conventional net-shaped inner member. In addition, the inner member of the present invention has excellent durability.
According to the present invention, for offering better weight-supporting performance, the inner member is provided with a plurality of slits. Due to the presence of the numerous slits, regions of the inner member to which a comparatively great load is applied will be caused to sag to a greater extent. In this manner, the weight of the body to be supported is distributed over a wide range of the inner member, whereby improved weight-supporting performance is obtained.
It should be noted that the slits of the present invention differ from the slits disclosed in Japanese Patent Publication No. 8-22250. Specifically, in Japanese Patent Publication No. 8-22250, use is made of an inner seat member and an inner back member which are integrally formed with each other. In order to allow the inner back member to incline backward, slits are formed in a portion which connects the two inner members. On the other hand, the slits of the present invention are provided for allowing the inner member to sag. Thus, the slits of the above publication and the slits of the present invention are different in function and location.
As an another way to offer improved weight-supporting performance, according to the present invention, the outer member may be made up of a metal base and auxiliary supporting elements made of a synthetic resin, wherein the metal base is prepared separately from the auxiliary supporting elements. The auxiliary supporting elements are elastically deformable. With such an arrangement, not only the inner member but also the auxiliary supporting elements are deformed under the weight of a body. Thus, the inner member and the auxiliary supporting elements are, as a whole, allowed to sag. In this manner, the auxiliary supporting elements of the outer member also offer good weight-supporting performance, whereby much improved weight-supporting performance is obtainable. (Thus, the present invention is preferably applied to a seat of a chair and a bed which are required to offer particularly good weight-supporting performance.)
It is possible to use a slit-formed inner member together with an outer member which includes a base and auxiliary supporting elements separate from the base.
Another body supporting
Katayama Koji
Takehara Shigenori
Takeuchi Hiroshi
Bednarek Michael D.
Cuomo Peter M.
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Vu Stephen
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