US 5,564,140 · Granted 1996-10-15
The Sliding Clip That Lets You Flatten Your Bed Frame for Moving
Select Comfort invented a clever bed foundation that breaks apart into flat pieces for shipping and storage, then snaps back together with sliding U-shaped clips that lock the mattress platform in place. The genius is that those clips slide along the frame rails, so you can adjust them without tools and pack the whole thing into a compact box.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a bed foundation system where mattress support panels are held in place by retaining clips that slide along the frame assembly's rails. What's protected here is the specific design of those U-shaped clips that grip the support panels through pins and apertures, allowing them to slide horizontally while staying locked in the longitudinal and transverse directions. Anyone making a competing flat-pack bed frame with this same sliding-clip fastening method would be infringing.
Why it matters
In the 1990s, flat-pack furniture was revolutionizing retail and shipping. Select Comfort's patent on this modular bed frame design protected a key innovation: making a sturdy, high-quality mattress foundation that could collapse down to shipping-box dimensions. This was directly tied to their business model of selling beds through catalogs and direct-to-consumer channels where compact shipping was critical to profitability and customer satisfaction.
Real-world use
When you order a modern adjustable bed or foundation online and it arrives in a surprisingly small box, those sliding clips locking the platform together are solving the same problem this patent addressed in 1996.
Original USPTO abstract
A bed foundation for supporting a mattress in a raised position relative to a floor that includes a frame assembly, mattress support panels, and retaining elements shiftably carried by the frame assembly for securing the mattress support panel against movement in the longitudinal and transverse axes of the bed foundation. The foundation is easily disassembled for compact storage and shipping, yet provides a high quality, sturdy mattress foundation when assembled. The retaining clips include a generally inverted U-shaped in cross section clip element that is slidably carried by the frame assembly frame members, and a retaining pin that is receivable within apertures of the mattress supporting panel.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 5,564,140
- Filing date
- 1994-07-22
- Grant date
- 1996-10-15
- Assignee
- Select Comfort Corporation
- Inventor(s)
- SHOENHAIR; JOHN J., EMBERTSON; THOMAS D.
- CPC class
- A47C19/021
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