Patent Application
20230292935
The present invention relates to a child's seat and harness, and more particularly, to a child's seat and harness with the harness being removable and having a coverable mounting bracket for securing harness in position.
Child seats such as those forming the seat part of highchairs provide a safe pace for a small child to sit at the level of a table in the company of others at the table and need a restraining harness for the child to prevent the child form climbing or falling from the height of the height chair. Such harnesses are known from, for example WO2018/173283, which discloses a child seat and harness which includes position adjustment of the harness as the child grows.
A problem arises with such harness and seat arrangements in that they are difficult to clean. During mealtimes a lot of food can be distributed over the entire set and collect in the crevasses created by the slots in the swat through which the harness straps pass. These leads to an arduous cleaning task after every meal. Furthermore research has determined that generally as small child grows it becomes significantly more agile and aware and is safe to sit in the child's seat without a harness, but the child is still small enough to need the benefit of the additional height at the table. In such cases the harness tends to be left in place unused because it is difficult to remove and can become a trap for dirt and germs and the cleaning task is still necessary and as arduous.
Thus, it is an objective of the present invention to provide a child's set and harness that overcomes these problems.
The present invention provides a child's seat and harness, such as would be used for a high chair, the seat having an open front and a rear back support and extending forwardly therefrom inclined sides which meet a seat base, the harness including a pair of shoulder straps, and a pair of waist straps connected together at their forward ends by a buckle and at their rearward ends by a bracket securely located in the rear back support and said bracket comprising a front side and a rear side, and at least one anchoring means for anchoring the rearward ends of the straps to the bracket which extend from the front side of the bracket, and wherein a cover plate is provided which is secured to the rear side of the bracket and covers the anchoring means.
These and other objectives of the present invention will no doubt become obvious to those of ordinary skill in the art after reading the following detailed description of the preferred embodiment that is illustrated in the various figures and drawings.
In
Referring to
It will be appreciated that alternative forms of harness securement may be envisaged. The anchoring means 14 may, in an alternative embodiment (not shown), be in the form of one slot 14a through which the end of each strap 8a, 8b, 9a, 9b passes and in which each strap 8a, 8b, 9a, 9b includes an secured end 16, so that it cannot pass through the corresponding slot 14a, 14b, 14c, 14d thus securely retaining the straps 8a, 8b, 9a, 9b to the bracket 11. Thus the anchoring means 14 include the slots and secured portion of the strap which work together to anchor the straps of the harness to the bracket 11. A simple way of enlarging the strap thickness is to fold over the end of the strap and stitch the end securely to the strap, thus providing a doubling of the thickness which is sufficient to be prevented from passing thorough the corresponding slots.
In an alternative embodiment (not shown) the straps 8a, 8b, 9a, 9b may combine to form a single strap which passes through a single slot 14a, the single strap including an enlarged end which retains the single strap and thus the straps 8a, 8b, 9a, 9b to the bracket 11.
In a further alternative embodiment of the invention (not shown) the straps 8a, 8b, 9a, 9b may combine to form two straps which passes through two corresponding single slots 14a, 14b, each of the two straps includes an enlarged end which retains the single strap and thus the straps 8a, 8b, 9a, 9b to the bracket 11. Straps 8a, 8b may form a single strap which passes through the slots 14c, 14d, entering in slot 14c and exiting slot 14d. Similarly for straps 9a, 9b.
Referring particularly to
The rear side 13 of the bracket 11 includes support means 18 in the form of four upstanding posts located inside the recess 17 for attachment of a cover plate 15.
As shown in
In alternative embodiment it is appreciated that the support means 18 may comprise as few as two upstanding posts 18 to which the cover plate 15 is secured so creating more space between the rear side 13 of the bracket 11 and the cover plate 15 between the upstanding posts 18 in which the secured ends 16 are located.
By means of this particular construction the outside surface 26 of the cover plate 15 forms a smooth flat surface which is easy to wipe clean and provides a surface on which information tailored to a particular audience may be presented such as a brand or mark 19. Thus all the components of the seat 2 and harness 7 and the highchair 1 may be made in one geographical location and the cover plate 15 in any number of variations of surface forms can be fitted in a number of alternative locations. This enables significant scale in the production of the majority of the components, and easy local adaptation.
Furthermore, the outside perimeter of the cover plate 15 includes a rounded edge 34 so that a smooth transition is provided between the contour as the seat outside surface 33 of the rear back support 4 of the seat 2 and the bracket outside surface 26, so forming a continuous smooth cleanable surface without any grooves or protrusions in which dirt can accumulate.
The bracket 11 is located in a correspondingly shaped opening 20 in the rear back support 4 of the seat 2. Whereas the cover plate is permanently secured to the bracket 11 by welding, the bracket 11 on the other hand is removably secured to the rear back support 4.
The outside perimeter 21 of the bracket 11 includes a flange 31 on its rear side 13 that is larger than the and the inside edge 22 of the opening 20 and includes detents 29 on its front side 12 which are dimensioned to securely attach the bracket 11 to the rear back support 4 in the opening 20 during normal use, but which can be released by applying sufficient pressure by an adult to remove the bracket 11 and the harness 7 from the opening 20 and thus from the seat 2 when not in use.
In this embodiment four detents 29, as shown in
In an alternative embodiment corresponding recesses (not shown) could be provided in the inside edge 22 of the opening 20. In can be imagined that the same effect could be achieved by detents arranged on the inside edge of the opening 20 and recesses on the outside perimeter of the bracket 11. Also, there could be a continuous recess or groove. The detents and recess(es) being dimensioned in combination with the physical properties of the material of the seat 2 and buckle 11, to ensure that at least a force of 120 newtons is required to remove the bracket 11 from the seat. This is so that it can be ensured that the bracket 11 will not become dislodged during normal use. Whereas when the harness is no longer required, due to the child becoming sufficient old to no longer need a harness, it can be removed by the adult user providing a sufficiently large force of 120 newtons against the bracket inside surface pushing outwardly to dislodge the detents 29 from engagement against the seat inside surface 25 to dislodge the bracket 11 from the opening 20. The entire harness can then be removed.
It is also possible to re-fit the bracket by reversing the process and pressing the bracket 11 forwardly against the rear back support with the bracket aligned with the opening 20, using the same required force until the detents click into position once more bearing against the seat inside surface. This is useful when the harness is soiled for example by accumulation of food during the child's mealtimes, and it can be removed to be thoroughly washed and replaced when clean. The seat back support 4 and the entire seat 2 can correspondingly easily thoroughly cleaned.
It can be seen from the drawings that the bracket 11 and opening 20 are correspondingly lozenge shaped, being elongate in the horizontal direction, and the slots 14 arranged as shown, as being the preferred embodiment, but that any suitable shape or arrangement of slots could be chosen to enable the working of the invention albeit in a less than optimal way.
Those skilled in the art will readily observe that numerous modifications and alterations of the device may be made while retaining the teachings of the invention.
| Number | Date | Country | Kind |
|---|---|---|---|
| 2203608.1 | Mar 2022 | GB | national |
