Sewing – Method of sewing – On specified product
Reexamination Certificate
2000-08-28
2001-07-24
Nerbun, Peter (Department: 3741)
Sewing
Method of sewing
On specified product
C112S117000, C112S130000, C112S470050, C101S035000
Reexamination Certificate
active
06263816
ABSTRACT:
FIELD OF THE INVENTION
The present invention relates to quilting, and particularly to the quilting of pattern bearing products such as mattress covers. The invention particularly relates to the manufacture of quilted materials which bear printed patterns.
BACKGROUND OF THE INVENTION
Quilting is a special art in the general field of sewing in which patterns are stitched through a plurality of layers of material over a two-dimensional area of the material. The multiple layers of material normally include at least three layers, one a woven primary or facing sheet that will have a decorative finished quality, one a usually woven backing sheet that may or may not be of a finished quality, and one or more internal layers of thick filler material, usually of randomly oriented fibers. The stitched patterns maintain the physical relationship of the layers of material to each other as well as provide ornamental qualities.
Large scale quilting operations have been used for many years in the production of bedding products. Mattress covers, which enclose and add padding to inner spring, foam or other resilient core structure, provide functional as well as ornamental features to a mattress. Mattress covers are typically made up of quilted top and bottom panels, which contribute to the support and comfort characteristics of a mattress, and an elongated side panel, which surrounds the periphery of the mattress to join the top and bottom panels around their edges to enclose the inner spring unit or other mattress interior.
Mattresses are made in a small variety of standard sizes and a much larger variety of combinations of interiors and covers to provide a wide range of support and comfort features and to cover a wide range of product prices. To provide variety of support and comfort requirements, the top and bottom panels of mattress covers are quilted using an assortment of fills and a selection of quilted patterns. To accommodate different mattress thicknesses, border panels of different widths are required with variations in the fill for border panels being less common. Border panels as well as top and bottom panels are usually made in different sizes to accommodate all of the standard mattress sizes.
Mattress covers are usually quilted on web-fed multi-needle quilters. Only one side of the quilted product need be finished for a mattress cover, so one layer of ornamental top goods or ticking is usually combined on a chain stitch quilting machine with fill and backing material to produce the mattress cover products. The ornamental characteristics of the ticking that form the outer surface of a mattress is regarded as important in the marketing of bedding products. Bedding manufacturers stock a variety of ticking materials of different colors and types, many having different sewn or printed patterns. Maintaining an adequate inventory of ticking requires the stocking of rolls of different widths of materials of different colors and patterns. The cost of such an inventory as well as the storage and handling of such an inventory contributes substantially to the manufacturing cost of bedding products.
Multiple needle quilters of the type illustrated in U.S. Pat. No. 5,154,130, hereby expressly incorporated by reference herein, are customarily used for the stitching of mattress covers. Such quilters include banks of mechanically ganged needles that sew multiple copies of a recurring pattern. Some of these quilted patterns are highly ornate and contribute materially to the appearance of the quilted products, particularly those that are of higher quality and cost, and which are made in smaller quantities. Other quilted patterns, such as simple zig-zag patterns, are more functional, and rely on the varieties of the ticking material for the visual distinctiveness of the product. The varieties of ticking materials include those sewn or printed with different patterns. Printed patterns are usually applied by the ticking supplier and rolls of ticking of each pattern are inventoried by the mattress cover manufacturer.
The ticking materials commonly bear a pre-applied pattern when rolls thereof are loaded onto the quilting machines. Lower cost mattresses are often made by sewing generic quilted patterns onto printed pattern material. However, frequent changing of the ticking material to produce products having a variety of appearances, requires interruption of the operation of the quilting machine for manual replacement and splicing of the material. This adds to labor costs and lowers equipment productivity. Further, the spliced area of the material web which must be cut from the quilted material is wasted. Furthermore, since mattress top and bottom panels are often thicker, and vary in thickness more than border panels, border panels are sometimes quilted on quilting lines that are separate from those used to quilt the top and bottom panels. Since border panels are usually preferred to match the top and bottom panels, the changing of ticking on the top and bottom panel line is almost always accompanied by a similar change of ticking material on the border panel line. Coordination of the two production lines, as well as the matching of border panels with the top and bottom panels, requires well executed control procedures and can lead to assembly errors or production delays.
There is a need in mattress cover manufacturing to improve the productivity and efficiency of making quilted products, particularly mattress covers, having a variety of designs without increasing, or while reducing, production costs.
SUMMARY OF THE INVENTION
An objective of the present invention is to provide an efficient and economical system and method for providing fabric panels of a variety of printed patterns, particularly differently patterned panels in small quantities. It is a particular objective of the present invention to provide flexibility in the production of mattress ticking and quilted mattress covers having patterns that can differ from product to product.
A particular objective of the present invention is to provide for the efficient arrangement of top, bottom and border panels of different printed patterns on one or more webs or sections of a fabric. A further objective of the invention is to coordinate the matching and assembly of the different panels that make up each of a plurality of differently patterned mattress covers or other fabric products.
According to the principles of the present invention, webs of ticking or units of other fabric are printed with patterns under the control of a computer controlled printer. Such printers are typically digital printers and may be referred to as digital printers, and include ink jet printers, continuous and dot-on-demand printers, and other printers that print images by dispensing ink or other printing medium in response to pattern information, which can usually vary from copy to copy, rather than from a physical mat, plate or mechanical transfer surface such as those commonly used for printing multiple copies of the same image.
In the preferred application of the invention, an ink jet printer scans a web of ticking material transversely and prints on the web in response to signals from a programmed computer. In one preferred embodiment of the invention, each scan row need not necessarily print only on the same panel, but can print one or more lines of each of several panels that are arranged transversely across the web of material. Each panel can be printed with the same pattern, each with a different pattern or some with the same pattern and others with one or more different patterns. Top and bottom panels that match or correspond to each of the border panels can be printed on different parts of the same or a different web.
After printing, the webs of ticking are usually quilted to one or more layers of fill material and usually a layer of backing material. The quilting may be applied to quilt different patterns on different panels or different sections of web containing more than one panel, or an entire web or length of web may be quilted with a generic pattern.
After
Codos Richard N.
White M. Burl
L&P Property Management Company
Nerbun Peter
Wood Herron & Evans L.L.P.
LandOfFree
Mattress cover printing and quilting system and method does not yet have a rating. At this time, there are no reviews or comments for this patent.
If you have personal experience with Mattress cover printing and quilting system and method, we encourage you to share that experience with our LandOfFree.com community. Your opinion is very important and Mattress cover printing and quilting system and method will most certainly appreciate the feedback.
Profile ID: LFUS-PAI-O-2550981