US 6,763,643 · Granted 2004-07-20
The Click-Together Flooring Patent That Made Laminate Installation DIY-Friendly
Imagine floor planks with grooves cut into their edges and a special connector piece with little hooks and lips. You snap the connector into the grooves, and it locks adjacent planks together — both vertically and horizontally — so they stay perfectly aligned without nails or glue. It's the mechanical secret behind modern click-lock flooring.
The plain-English version
What it protects
The claim covers a flooring system where individual board-shaped floor elements have grooves running parallel to all four edges, paired with separate joining profiles that feature lips and hooks designed to fit into those grooves. What's protected here is the specific mechanical arrangement: the grooves' undercuts match the hooks on the joining profile lips, creating both vertical guidance (through the lips in the grooves) and horizontal locking (through the undercut-and-hook system). Anyone manufacturing a click-lock flooring system using this exact combination of groove geometry and connector design would infringe.
Why it matters
This patent represents a fundamental shift in how residential flooring gets installed. Instead of requiring professional tools, adhesives, or extensive carpentry skill, homeowners can now assemble laminate or engineered wood flooring themselves by clicking planks together. The separate joining profile system became the backbone of modern click-lock flooring categories, enabling manufacturers to produce affordable, user-friendly products that disrupted the flooring installation market. Filing in 1999 and granted in 2004, it landed during the boom in DIY home improvement.
Real-world use
Every time someone installs laminate or click-lock engineered flooring at home without calling a contractor, they're using the mechanical principle this patent locks down — snapping planks together at the edges until they click and hold firm.
Original USPTO abstract
Flooring material comprising board shaped floor elements ( 1 ) which are provided with edges ( 2 ), a lower side ( 5 ) and a decorative upper surface ( 3 ). The floor elements ( 1 ) are intended to be joined by means of separate joining profiles ( 10 ). All four edges ( 2 ) are provided with one notch-like groove ( 4 ) each. The grooves ( 4 ) are arranged parallel to its respective edge ( 2 ). The joining profiles ( 10 ) are provided with lips ( 11 ) arranged in pairs. The lips ( 11 ) are intended to each be received by one of the grooves ( 4 ) so that the floor element ( 1 ) with the grooves ( 4 ) at the adjacent edges ( 2 ) will be guided or fixed vertically via the lips ( 11 ) of a joining profile ( 10 ). The lips ( 11 ) are joined by a middle section ( 12 ) of the joining profile ( 10 ). The grooves ( 4 ) are furthermore provided with an undercut ( 46 ) while the lips ( 11 ) are provided with hooks ( 16 ) that matches the undercut ( 46 ) whereby adjacent floor elements ( 1 ) will be guided or fixed horizontally via the undercuts ( 46 ) and the hooks ( 16 ).
Patent details
- Publication number
- US 6,763,643
- Filing date
- 1999-09-27
- Grant date
- 2004-07-20
- Assignee
- Pergo (Europe) Ab
- Inventor(s)
- MAARTENSSON GOERAN
- CPC class
- E04F15/02038
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