US 5,765,246 · Granted 1998-06-16
The Wavy Foam Border That Made Air Beds Actually Comfortable
Imagine an air mattress where the edges don't feel rock-hard and collapse when you lean against them. This patent wraps the inflatable bladder with specially sculpted foam walls that have wavy, rippled surfaces. The waves let the foam feel soft and squishy while staying firm enough to hold up the entire bed's perimeter.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a foam border wall system with sculpted wavy surfaces (sinusoidal convolutions) that surround an inflatable mattress bladder. Specifically, what's protected is the combination of a single-piece foam border element stiff enough to support the mattress edge while featuring upper and/or lower surfaces deliberately shaped with wave-like indentations. Anyone manufacturing an air bed with this particular wavy foam edge design without permission would be infringing.
Why it matters
Before this patent, air mattresses were notoriously uncomfortable around the edges—they'd either sag under your weight or feel uncomfortably hard and unstable. Select Comfort (which became known for Sleep Number beds) used this invention to solve a real consumer pain point. By combining the structural rigidity needed with the comfort of a sculpted, forgiving surface, this patent helped pioneer the market for premium inflatable mattresses that people actually wanted to sleep on regularly.
Real-world use
When you sit or lie on the edge of a modern air mattress and feel a gentle give instead of an immediate collapse, you're experiencing the benefit of bordered foam engineering like this patent describes.
Original USPTO abstract
A mattress with an inflatable bladder and an outer border wall to support the outer edges of the bladder. The present invention employs foam block border walls that include foam border elements with either an upper or an upper and a lower surface sculpted to present convolutions preferably having generally sinusoidal shapes in vertical cross-section. The convolutions allow for a sensation of softness when being deformed, and allow for ventilation of the inner surface, while at the same time, the foam element can be made of a single piece of foam that is of sufficient stiffness to support the outer perimeter surface of the bladder within the mattress.
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 5,765,246
- Filing date
- 1997-01-13
- Grant date
- 1998-06-16
- Assignee
- Select Comfort Corporation
- Inventor(s)
- SHOENHAIR; JOHN J.
- CPC class
- A47C27/148
Want to file your own patent?
Thinking about designing a new type of furniture or bedding? Use our free patentability scanner to see if your idea builds on existing protected territory before you invest in tooling.
Free patentability scan