Oh, patents! Bugaboo® Giraffe

 Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Bugaboo® also produces a patented high chair called The Giraffe®. The Bugaboo® Giraffe gets its name from the design of its legs, which mimetize a giraffe’s legs. Giraffe-like legs that offer strength and stability for its modular design. 

The Bugaboo® Giraffe design is modular as it is intended to adjust and cooperate with various accessories to accommodate a child from infancy to kindergarten. Indeed, even adults could conceivably use the Bugaboo® Giraffe, since Bugaboo® Giraffe high chairs can support up to 100 kgs in weight (approx. 220 lbs).

The Bugaboo® Giraffe design is patented. The US design patent, USD1076472S, titled High chair with adjustable footrest for children or babies was awarded to Simon de Jong, on May 27th, 2025.

The extracted patent Figure 1.1 depicts a perspective view of the high chair. An image of the marketed Bugaboo® Giraffe is also included.

Reference

Bugabo® Giraffe (website)

https://www.bugaboo.com/us-en/high-chair/

Oh, patents! Charlotte Perriand's LC4 chaise lounge

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Here is a beginning of the year find that will probably surprise you too (on more counts than one)!

Le Corbusier’s famous LC4 reclining chaise lounge, sometimes called "the relaxing machine", was actually designed, in 1929, by a brilliant 22-year old, French woman architect, called Charlotte Perriand., who understandably, considering just the costs of producing prototypes, "couldn't care less"! (Architectural Review - Interview  2014) 

The 1930 French patent, FR672824, titled Siège, clearly corroborates this situation, listing her first, as Madame Scholefield, née PERRIAND (her married and maiden names), together with Charles-Édouard Jeanneret, (aka Le Corbusier), and André-Pierre Jeanneret (Le Corbusier’s cousin).  Indeed, Perriand, was invited to work at the already renowned Le Corbusier Studio, in Paris, mid 1920s, jumpstarting a lifelong and close collaboration with the Le Corbusier team, even though she worked on many other distinct projects of her own, and in collaboration with other famous architects and artists, during the course of her 70-year career. 

The French patent disclosing the LC4 chaise lounge recites multipurpose “seating”, functioning equally well as an armchair or chaise lounge, a therapeutic leg-supporting chair, and/or resting chair. It is also a “rocking chair” (the English term is used in the French patent), in that the frame is bent, and the user “rocks” into the various functional positions, in contrast to rocking “back and forth."

FR672824 Siège

The patent describes a bent metal frame, supporting a hammock, with body curving lines, and the double “T” stools on which the frame rests, and rocks from one position to another. The positions illustrated in the patent drawings cover the full range of motion, from one end position. as a therapeutic leg-supporting chair (Figure 1), through a horizontal resting position (Figure 5), and a regular armchair position (Figure 2) (at the opposite end of the therapeutic position), plus everything in between, including the intermediate positions illustrated in Figures 3 and 4. Indeed, the multiple positions of the LC4 chaise lounge require no mechanical parts to operate. The seat slides "rocking" from one position to another, on its double stool base.

The sheet of figure drawings, extracted from the patent, is included with a picture of Charlotte Perriand, using the LC4 chair in the therapeutic leg-supporting position. Another picture of the chair, in the regular, and opposite armchair position, is included, under the watchful eye of Le Corbusier (captured in the poster). 

In an agreement with Le Corbusier, the 1929 LC4 chair was first produced by the Italian Cassina furniture company, in 1964, and is still produced to date by the same company (The Financial Times, 2013). The chair is marketed under the better known Le Corbusier studio name, while the label retains the 1929 Le Corbusier, Jeanneret - Perriand designer names. 

References

Cassina

https://www.cassina.com/en 

Meade, M & C. Ellis (2014) Interview with Charlotte  Perriand in The Architectural Review, March 6, 2014. 

https://www.architectural-review.com/rethink/interview-with-charlotte-perriand/8659677.article
Watson-Smyth, K. (2013) Design Classic: The LC4 Chaise Lounge by Le Corbusier, in The Financial Times, September 20, 2013. 
https://www.ft.com/content/c09530f4-1fbc-11e3-aa36-00144feab7de

Oh, patents! Canopy chair

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Sunny days ahead! Sun protection ahoy!

Swimways® Kelsyus markets a very patented foldable canopy chair. The canopy doubles as a carrying case for the folded chair, and it can be locked into various positions for maximum sun protection.

US2014167458 titled Canopy chair recites the latest patentable improvements to this canopy chair whose chair and canopy frames, various means of attaching the canopy to the chair and its pivotability, collapsibility of the chair, sun fabric design and means of attaching it to the frame, are all previously patented and incorporated.

The patented improvements disclosed in US2014167458  titled Canopy Chair include the possibility of extending the canopy and the telescoping frame of the chair allowing for removal of the canopy, as well as the use of the canopy doubling as a carrying case for the foldable chair.

Below the abstract for US2014167458 titled Canopy chair, a figure drawing extracted from the patent and to the left an image of the marketed product.

[Abstract US2014167458]
"An exemplary embodiment providing one or more improvements includes a frame which attaches to outdoor furniture, in particular to a chair, and a canopy. Embodiments can be moved from an overhead position to a behind the chair position. The frames can be moved from a collapsed to a fully extended position. In embodiments the canopy can be positioned to contain the collapsed frame and chair in the carrying position." 

Happy shaded and safe sunny days!

Reference

Swimways® Kelysus

https://www.kelsyus.com/

Design patents and Utility patents - What’s the difference?

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

Just to clarify the differences between design and utility patents, beyond statutory form since design patents only have one claim and an optional description or specification, here is an explanation of the conceptual differences per US Code Title 35, Sections 101 and 171, as stated in a USPTO brochure intended for applicants. 

In general terms, a “utility patent” protects the way an article is used and works (35 U.S.C. 101), while a "design patent" protects the way an article looks (35 U.S.C. 171). Both design and utility patents may be obtained on an article if invention resides both in its utility and ornamental appearance. While utility and design patents afford legally separate protection, the utility and ornamentality of an article are not easily separable. Articles of manufacture may possess both functional and ornamental characteristics. (USPTO, p. 2)

It follows then that a single artefact can be patented both for its utility or function and its visual or ornamental properties, depending on whether these separate aspects of invention fulfill all the conditions of patentability.  This is the case, for example, with the Frank O. Gehry wood lattice furniture where the visual or ornamental appeal of the furniture is patented as design patents, and the manufacturing process of the interlocking wood lattice is patented in utility patents. 

Specifically, the Gehry wood lattice furniture is patented in design patents such as: USD344191 titled Dining chair, USD334098 titled Chair or USD341263 titled Club chair, and the wood lattice manufacturing process of this furniture is also patented in two utility patents, US5284380 and US5154486, both titled Furniture comprising laminated slats and methods of manufacturing such furniture 

Included below is the abstract for the utility patent US5154486 titled Furniture comprising laminated slats and methods of manufacturing such furniture, and a patent figure with corresponding image of the marketed product -- just to anchor the beautiful basket weaving of this line of furniture into something you can see!

Furniture comprises a strong, aesthetically appealing, woven lattice of interlocking slats. The slats are made of wood laminate having indentations allowing fitting of the slats across one another so as to form the lattice. Advantageously, the furniture may be manufactured of a single type of material, that of the bent wood laminate slats. No other supporting structural material is needed to make the furniture simultaneously possess the advantages of being sturdy, aesthetically appealing, economical to manufacture, and light in structure and appearance. The methods of manufacturing such furniture has also been included. [US5154486]

Reference

USPTO: Guide to filing a design patent application

http://www.uspto.gov/web/offices/com/iip/pdf/brochure_05.pdf  

Oh, patents! More Frank O. Gehry designs

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann, PhD

Here are a few more beautiful Frank O. Gehry patented design figures with their marketed images -- just in case you need to furnish your residence or have already started your xmas list of wishes!

 

 

USD346293 – Coffee table 

 

 USD338579 – Café table

                    

 

 USD357185 - Lamp

 

           

 

 USD533364S - Chair             

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As for the famous Frank O. Gehry corrugated cardboard Wiggle chair… I could only find the 2014 price USD1140.00!

 

 

Oh, patents! Frank O. Gehry designs

 

Copyright © Françoise Herrmann

So you thought that the great American architect Frank O. Gehry only designed fluffy-looking buildings that appear to defy gravity, that transform cities, and whose outside walls, upon closer inspection, appear like twisted metal sculptures. Well...try again…There is much more Frank O. Gehry, who also designs hundreds of everyday objects and artifacts, such as furniture and jewelry – and especially seating!

A search for Frank Gehry patents returns 239 US design patents, in addition to the utility patents for sheet metal bending and rendering proper to the manufacturing processes of the everyday objects and to architecture.

 

Frank Gehry design patents for furniture include, for example:

 

USD341264S – Diamond chair (See fig. 2)

USD344191S – Dining chair (See fig. 1)

USD525041S – Chair

USD518657S1 – Chair

USD530936S – Chair for theatres, auditoriums and the like

USD533364S – Chair

USD334488 – Chair

USD422424 – Chair

USD334098 – Chair

USD333738 - Chair

USD341265S - Café chair

USD341263S - Club chair

USD513910S1 - Seat frame

USD663558 – Seat frame

USD530530 - Left twist stool

USD530529 - Right twist stool (See fig. at EOF)

USD528808 - Three sided stool

USD528816 – Sofa

USD529303 - Bench

USD346924 - Seat cushion

USD529303 - Bench

USD357185 - Lamp

USD523166 - Lamp

USD513677 - Coffee table

USD346293 – Coffee table

USD338579 – Café table

USD344856 - Ottoman

USD510251 – Handle

USD509422 – Handle

USD521355 - Handle

You will find enclosed design patent drawings and corresponding marketed products, as an illustration of some the Frank O. Gehry seating, and the breadth of this design palette -- exploring the intersections of form, function and materials, from corrugated cardboard to bended wood and metal, and injection molding!

 

Take a seat and enjoy!...

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