Filling material for cushions

Stock material or miscellaneous articles – Coated or structually defined flake – particle – cell – strand,... – Rod – strand – filament or fiber

Reexamination Certificate

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Details

C428S371000, C428S377000, C428S304400

Reexamination Certificate

active

06235391

ABSTRACT:

BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Conventional pillows are usually filled with a cushioning filler material of cotton wadding or batting, feathers, down, sponge rubber, fiber fill or foam. Among these materials, down shows excellent properties in bulkiness, softness, thermal insulation, compression recovery and moisture transmission. Many people, however, are allergic to down, and down may harbor not only allergens, but also insects and bacteria. Down is also cost prohibitive for many applications.
Cotton, compared with down, has inferior bulkiness, softness and thermal insulation. Its compression recovery is not as good as down or some of the synthetic filling materials. When damp, the cotton wads together and does not sufficiently recover to its uncompressed state.
The synthetic materials have advantages over the natural materials, in view of cost, durability and health concerns. Polyester fiber fill is an especially popular filling material. Other synthetic fibers used as fillers include polyethylene, polypropylene, polyamide and aramides. A matrix of straight fibers is pre-fluffed with a picker apparatus to separate the fibers to permit their insertion into a cushion or pillow casing. The fibers are then blown through an injector or plurality of injectors into cavities formed in the casing. With cushion use, fibers tend to bunch up and create pockets which permit the cushion or pillow to “bottom out”. Particularly, it has been found that fibers nest and clump together when blown into larger volume casings or casings with complicated shapes. Thus, in an effort to prevent undue clumping of fibers, larger or more complicated cushions are separated by ticking into several smaller compartments that are filled with the fibers.
To eliminate some of the crushing and clumping associated with straight fiber filling materials, U.S. Pat. No. 3,922,756 proposes forming the fibers into a filamentary spherical body. Spherically intertwined fiber aggregates also are shown in U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,998,309 and 4,794,038.
In lieu of fiber fill, blocks of sponge rubber or foam may be shredded into chunks or particles that are used as filling materials for cushions and pillows. The edges of the shredded foam chunks tend to hook together, which creates regions with more foam and regions with less foam within the cushion core. The foam chunks or particles do not reproduce the cushioning plushness of fiber fill or down.
To address the clumping problems associated with fibers, U.S. Pat. No. 5,061,737 suggests combining fiber fill (1-3 inch long fibers) with shredded polyurethane foam chips (¼ inch blocks) to form a filling material. The fibers are coated or slickened with a silicone finish prior to mixing with the shredded foam. The patent states that the length and diameter of the fibers relative to the size of the foam chips and the limited movement permitted by the slickened fiber surfaces affords adequate cushioning support while still maintaining the cushion shape.
U.S. Pat. No. 4,109,332 proposes using polyurethane foam cut into polygonal shaped rods. The rods have flat planar top, bottom and side surfaces, and preferably have a length and width proportionally greater than the rod thickness (or height). The patent emphasizes the importance of the planar nature of the side areas to prevent the rods from hooking on to one another when used as a filling for cushions.
Other synthetic filling materials include engineered elastomeric spheres, U.S. Pat. Nos. 4,754,511 and 5,608,936, pebbles or beads, U.S. Pat. Nos. 3,608,961 and 3,999,801, or tubular hollow forms.
To date, the prior art has not shown cellular polymer or flexible foam filling materials that can be readily inserted by blowing or other means into the chambers of cushion, upholstery cushion and pillow casings without the need for additional ticking or compartments, that repeatedly recover from compression, that avoid clumping and nesting thereby preventing pockets and “bottoming out”, and that may be made economically as compared to prior filling materials.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
A filling element for a cushion, pillow, or upholstered article is formed from a resilient material, such as flexible, open cell foam, shaped into a bent strand. The strand preferably has a portion along its length that is Z-shaped, V-shaped, C-shaped or S-shaped. The resilient material may be formed to have a combination of these shapes along different portions of the strand length.
In the preferred embodiment, the strand has a distal end, a proximal end and a length measured as the distance between the distal end and the proximal end. The strand has a substantially constant cross-sectional thickness along its length. In all cases, the length of the strand is substantially greater than its nominal cross-sectional thickness. Preferably, the length of the strand is about 5 to 20 times greater than the nominal cross-sectional thickness of the strand. In addition, the individual sections making up the strand length also have a length greater than the nominal cross-sectional thickness of the strand.
The strand is formed with at least one bend along its length. Preferably, the bend is at an angle of between about 15 to about 120 degrees, most preferably about 30 to about 40 degrees.
The filling element may be formed from a strand with a Z-shape. In this case, the strand has generally straight legs or leg sections depending at bent angles from a generally straight center section. The legs terminate at the distal end and proximal end, respectively. These ends have generally planar faces. The planar faces of the distal and proximal ends may be cut at an angle perpendicular to the sidewalls of the legs. Preferably, the planar faces of the ends are cut at an angle other than perpendicular to the sidewalls of the legs, such that the faces each have a cross-sectional areas greater than the nominal cross sectional area of the corresponding leg.
The filling element may be formed from a strand with an S-shape. In such case, the strand has generally curved legs depending at bent angles from a generally curved center section. The legs terminate at the distal end and proximal end, respectively. These ends have generally planar faces. The planar faces of the distal and proximal ends may be cut at an angle perpendicular to the sidewalls of the legs. Preferably, the planar faces of the ends are cut at an angle other than perpendicular to the sidewalls of the legs, such that the faces each have a cross-sectional areas greater than the nominal cross sectional area of the corresponding leg.
The resilient material is a cellular polymer material, preferably flexible, open cell polyether or polyester polyurethane foam. When a polyurethane foam is used, the foam has a density in the range of about 0.6 to about 1.2, preferably about 0.8 to about 1.0 pounds per cubic foot, and an indentation force deflection (IFD) in the range of about 4 to about 15, preferably about 8 to about 12 pounds.


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