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Quad chair with safety spacer

Quad chair with safety spacer description/claims

Collapsible Furniture, and particularly collapsible chairs having a quad structure.

Folding chairs are relatively popular, in part because they can be stored at considerably reduced space requirements when compared to non-folding chairs. Exemplary folding chairs with solid arm rests and seat support rods are described in U.S. Pat. No. 4,613,185 to Marchesini et al. (Sep. 23, 1986), U.S. Pat. No. 5,899,525 to Tseng (May 4, 1999), U.S. Pat. No. 5,947,553 to Tseng (Sep. 7, 1999), and U.S. Pat. No. 6,062,639 to Hill (May 16, 2000), all of which are incorporated by reference herein.

Nevertheless, previously known folding chairs still take up a relatively large space when folded, since the dimension of the folding chair is generally reduced only along one space coordinate (e.g., reduced length). To further reduce the space requirement, collapsible chairs have been developed in which further size reduction is achieved by folding the chair along at least two space coordinates (e.g., length and width). Various collapsing chairs are known in the art.

In most of the known collapsible chairs, the collapsing action is achieved by using a quad configuration and exemplary collapsible chairs with such quad configuration are described in U.S. Pat. No. 6,322,138 to Tang, U.S. Pat. Nos. 6,237,993 and 6,231,119 to Zheng, and U.S. Pat. No. 5,984,406 to Lee, all of which are incorporated by reference herein. While such chairs provide substantial increase in collapsibility by virtue of their quad configuration, new problems arise. Most significantly, where an operator folds the chair from the open to the collapsed configuration, the chair needs careful manipulation to prevent injury to the operators hand as almost all of the parts are moving parts that approximate each other in a scissor-like movement as the chair is collapsed.

Therefore, while there are numerous configurations for collapsible chairs are known in the art, all or almost all of them suffer from one or more disadvantages. Consequently, there is still a need to provide improved collapsible chairs with quad configuration that significantly reduce the chance of injury as the chair is being collapsed.

The present invention is directed to configurations and methods for a collapsible chair having a quad configuration in which a spacer increases the distance between the cross bars of a cross brace to thereby reduce or prevent injury to a user's hand or fingers as the used collapses the chair.

In one aspect of the inventive subject matter, a collapsible chair has a first cross brace with a first cross bar and a second cross bar, and a second cross brace with a third cross bar and a fourth cross bar. In such chairs, the first and second cross braces are coupled to each other via a third cross brace with a fifth cross bar and a sixth cross bar and a fourth cross brace with a seventh cross bar and an eighth cross bar, such that one end of the first cross bar is pivotably coupled to one end of the eight cross bar and one end of the second cross bar is pivotably coupled to one end of the third cross bar to thereby form a quad structure. Each of the first cross bar and the second cross bar, the third cross bar and the fourth cross bar, the fifth cross bar and the sixth cross bar, and the seventh cross bar and the eighth cross bar are rotatably coupled to each other via a first, second, third, and fourth axis, respectively, and at least one of the first, second, third, and fourth axes is coupled to a spacer element that maintains a minimum distance of at least 1 cm between the cross bars that are rotatably coupled to each other, wherein the spacer element reduces collapsibility of the collapsible chair as compared to the chair without the spacer element.

Therefore, in another aspect of the inventive subject matter, a spacer having a first and a second end may include a continuous channel formed therein, wherein the continuous channel is configured to receive an axis that rotatably connects a first cross bar with a second cross bar in a collapsible chair that has a quad configuration, and wherein the first and second ends engage with the first and second cross bars such that the first and second cross bars remain at a distance of at least 1 cm from each other as the collapsible chair collapses.

Various objects, features, aspects and advantages of the present invention will become more apparent from the following detailed description of preferred embodiments of the invention.

FIG. 1 is a perspective view of an exemplary collapsible chair having a spacer element according to the inventive subject matter.

FIG. 2 is a detail view of the collapsible chair of FIG. 1.

The inventor has discovered that safety for collapsible quad chairs can be significantly improved by providing a spacer element that is configured to maintain the distance between moving cross bars of a cross brace. Such spacers are particularly useful in helping to prevent injuries to the user's hand and/or fingers as the chair is collapsed from an open to a closed configuration.

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• Utility Patent

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