US 5,247,773 · Granted 1993-09-28
The Plastic Building Block That Could Replace Traditional Construction
Imagine if you could build a house like you build with Lego—snap plastic pieces together instead of hammering wood and nailing drywall. This patent covers a clever system where plastic structural components lock together through male-female connectors that either slide in lengthwise or snap together sideways, creating rigid, interlocking walls, ceilings, and roofs without traditional fasteners.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers an extruded plastic building component with interlocking male and female connector systems. Specifically, it protects a design where a male spline with resilient flanges can be forced into a female slot and springs apart to lock, plus a ridge system that prevents sideways movement between connected pieces. Anyone manufacturing or selling a plastic building system using this snap-together or slide-together connector design would need a license to avoid infringing this patent.
Why it matters
This patent represents an early attempt to industrialize home construction by replacing heavy, labor-intensive materials with lightweight extruded plastic components. The mechanical innovation—especially the spring-lock connector—solves a real problem: how to join plastic pieces so they stay rigid under load. If this system worked at scale, it could reduce construction time and cost, though widespread adoption would depend on building codes, durability testing, and market acceptance of plastic structural elements.
Real-world use
You'd encounter this technology in modular plastic buildings, temporary structures, or prefabricated homes where walls and roofing snap together on-site without traditional nails, screws, or bolts.
Original USPTO abstract
A simplified building structure that can be extruded out of plastic to be used as inexpensive substitutes for walls, ceilings, roofs, posts, and other structural components. The structure includes elongated male and female means to connect two of the structural components together securely, either by longitudinally inserting one into the other or by snapping the male component transversely into the female component. For this purpose, the male component has resilient flanges that can be forced into a female slot, thereafter to spring apart to engage overhanging parts of juxtaposed edges of the slot to lock the two components rigidly together. Preferably, the flanged male spline is formed on top of a ridge, the side edges of which engage the juxtaposed edges of the female slot to prevent any transverse movement of one of the components relative to the other.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 5,247,773
- Filing date
- 1991-03-05
- Grant date
- 1993-09-28
- Assignee
- Weir Richard L
- Inventor(s)
- WEIR; RICHARD L.
- CPC class
- E04B1/12
Want to file your own patent?
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