US 10,240,348 B2Granted

Mechanical locking of floor panels with a flexible tongue

AssigneeVälinge Innovation AB

InventorsDarko Pervan, Niclas Hakansson, Per Nygren

Life of this patent

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Abstract

Floor panels which are provided with a mechanical locking system including an extruded flexible tongue in a sidewardly open groove which during a vertical folding motion is bent horizontally. A tongue adapted for being received in a sidewardly open groove of a floor panel, wherein the tongue, which is an elongated extruded section, when received in the groove is bendable in a plane substantially parallel with a front face of the floor panel, such that the tongue is at least partially resiliently displaceable inside said sidewardly open groove in said plane during locking of the floor panel with another floor panel and wherein a vertical protrusion, serving as a friction connection between the tongue and the groove, is arranged at an upper or lower part of the tongue, wherein the tongue has a total width that varies in the longitudinal direction of the tongue.

Claims12

Dependent claims

A method to install and connect a third panel to a first panel in a first row in a horizontal and a vertical direction and to a second panel in a second row in a horizontal and a vertical direction, wherein the third panel or the second panel comprises a flexible tongue in a displacement groove, the method comprising the steps of:

bringing the third panel to an angled position with an upper part of a first joint edge of the third panel in contact with a joint edge of the first panel in the first row;
displacing the third panel, while the third panel is at the angled position, to move along the joint edge of the first panel in the horizontal direction towards the second panel until at least a part of a second joint edge of the third panel is essentially in contact with a part of a corresponding joint edge of the second panel and a part of the flexible tongue is pressed into the displacement groove;
and
folding down the third panel vertically towards the second panel and thereby locking the third panel to the first and the second panels.

1 more element

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.

Facts

Application: 14/046,235Filed 4 Oct 2013 · continuation
Priority: EP 0402516722 Oct 2004
Published: US 2014/0053497 A127 Feb 2014
Granted: 26 Mar 2019
Term ends: Not estimatedThe source records don’t support an estimate.

Classification23 codes

E04F 15/02038
Flooring or floor layers composed of a number of similar elements: characterised by tongue and groove connections between neighbouring flooring…
E04B 5/00
Floors
E04F 21/22
For laying flooring: of single elements, e.g. flooring cramps ; flexible webs
E04B 1/541
Connections for building structures in general: joints substantially without separate connecting elements, e.g. jointing by inter-engagement

Family

PCT/SE2005/001586Parent of this continuation · filed 21 Oct 2005
Application12/216,892Parent of this continuation · filed 11 Jul 2008
Application13/670,039Parent of this continuation · filed 6 Nov 2012
US 8,341,915 B2Parent of this continuation · filed 1 Jan 2013
US 8,381,477 B2Parent of this continuation · filed 26 Feb 2013
US 2014/0053497 A1Pre-grant publication · published 27 Feb 2014
Application11/575,600Parent of this continuation
US 2008/0134607 A1Published application
US 2008/0295432 A1Published application
US 2013/0081349 A1Published application
US 10,240,348 B2This patent

From the US filing history. Foreign family members aren’t listed.