US 5,231,562 · Granted 1993-07-27
The 1993 Desktop Cable Trap That Made Messy Desks Organized
Imagine a hidden compartment built right into your desk that swallows up all those tangled cables and power cords. This invention is a hinged storage box that sits underneath your desktop with a door on the front and a modular wiring setup in the back, plus a power outlet flap in the access door itself.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a desktop-mounted wire storage compartment that sits underneath a desktop access opening with a removable front door, a self-contained modular wiring section mounted in the rear wall above the bottom, and a pivoting access door frame in the desktop itself that carries a power tap on its underside. Anyone making a similar hidden cable management system with these specific features would be infringing on this design.
Why it matters
As offices and homes filled with computers, monitors, and peripherals in the early 1990s, cable clutter became a real problem. This patent solved a common frustration by hiding wires and power distribution entirely under the desk surface, keeping workspaces clean while making cables easily accessible through the hinged door system. It represents one approach to the cable management category that emerged as electronics multiplied.
Real-world use
When you sit at an office desk and notice a hidden compartment underneath with cables neatly routed through a door panel, that's the kind of solution this patent describes—keeping your desk surface clear while managing power and data lines out of sight.
Original USPTO abstract
A desktop wire management apparatus comprises an elongated wire storage compartment removably mountable under an access opening in the desktop, a forwardly openable front door in a front wall of the wire storage compartment, and a self contained wiring module removably mountable in a wiring module opening in a rear wall of the wire storage compartment at a vertical position above the bottom of the wire storage compartment. An access door is pivotally mounted in a frame in the desktop access opening, with a temporary power tap being mounted on the underside of the access door.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 5,231,562
- Filing date
- 1991-01-02
- Grant date
- 1993-07-27
- Assignee
- Lawrence Pierce / Shaw Robert L / Proos John A
- Inventor(s)
- PIERCE; LAWRENCE, SHAW; ROBERT L., PROOS; JOHN A.
- CPC class
- A47B21/06
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