US 3,579,941 · Granted 1971-05-25
The 1971 Floating Wood Floor That Changed Parquet Forever
This patent describes wooden floor tiles held together by a rubbery glue that flexes instead of cracks, and filled with foam underneath to make them softer and warmer to walk on. Instead of nailing wood boards to a concrete base, you could snap these tiles together like a puzzle, making installation faster and the floor more forgiving.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The patent covers a specific design for parquet floor blocks made of wood with a cellular foam core, joined to neighboring blocks using flexible rubber-like adhesive in tongue-and-groove slots. What's protected is the combination of these three elements—the foam interior, the flexible adhesive, and the interlocking joint system—as a single flooring unit. A competitor couldn't legally sell an identical multi-block parquet system with foam and flexible adhesive joinery without licensing or inventing around these claims.
Why it matters
In the late 1960s, parquet flooring was typically individual wooden strips that had to be installed one by one, or rigid blocks that cracked easily. This patent proposed pre-assembled, foam-cushioned units with flexible joinery, which would have made installation faster, reduced movement-related cracking, and improved comfort underfoot. While the specific technology may not have dominated the market, it represented an early attempt to engineer wood flooring for easier installation and better performance—a problem the flooring industry continued to solve in decades following.
Real-world use
When you walk across a cushioned wood floor in a modern home or retail space, or install click-together laminate flooring, you're benefiting from the same conceptual innovation: pre-made units that interlock without rigid fastening, taking the damage and labor out of traditional parquet installation.
Original USPTO abstract
Wooden parquet block flooring incorporating cellular foam in multiple parquet block units having rubberlike flexible adhesive joining tongue and groove formations within the multiple block unit.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 3,579,941
- Filing date
- 1968-11-19
- Grant date
- 1971-05-25
- Assignee
- Howard C Tibbals
- Inventor(s)
- HOWARD C. TIBBALS
- CPC class
- E04F15/022
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