US 7,677,663 B1Granted

Safety seat assembly

OwnerDavid Charles, Jose Abella +1inventors

InventorsDavid Charles, Jose Abella, Wayne Wingate

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Abstract

An assembly for safely supporting an occupant in a vehicle such as, but not limited to, a watercraft and including a seat assembly and a support frame. A connector assembly is disposed and structured to movably interconnect the seat assembly to said support frame along a first rotational axis. A mount assembly is connected to the vehicle and includes an attachment assembly disposed and structured to movably interconnect the support frame to the mount assembly along a second rotational axis. The support frame and the connector assembly associated therewith as well as the mount assembly and the attachment assembly associated therewith are cooperatively disposed and structured to orient said first and second rotational axes in substantially perpendicular relation to one another, such that the seat assembly will be able to move in a substantially gimbal-like fashion relative to the movement of the vehicle while traveling.

Claims18

Dependent claims

An assembly for safely supporting an occupant in a vehicle, said assembly comprising:

a seat assembly,
a support frame connected to said seat assembly and structured to enable rotational movement of said seat assembly about a first rotational axis,
a mount assembly connected to said support frame and structured to facilitate rotational movement of said support frame about a second rotational axis,
said support frame and said mount assembly cooperatively disposed and structured to define a substantially perpendicular orientation of said first and second rotational axes relative to one another,
a connector assembly mounted on said support frame and disposed and structured to removably and rotationally interconnect said seat assembly to said support frame,
said seat assembly including a housing having a float assembly disposed at least partially within said housing and structured to buoyantly support said seat assembly, and
said float assembly and said connector assembly cooperatively disposed and structured to enable automatic detachment of said seat assembly from said support frame upon buoyant support of said seat assembly by said float assembly into a predetermined range of orientations.

4 more elements

An assembly for safely supporting an occupant in a vehicle, said assembly comprising:

a seat assembly and a support frame,
a connector assembly disposed and structured to movably interconnect said seat assembly to said support frame along a first rotational axis,
said support frame comprising a substantially bifurcated construction including two spaced apart arms, said connector assembly comprising two connecting structures each mounted on a different one of said arms,
said two connecting structures disposed and structured to removably and rotationally interconnect each of said two arms to a different side of said seat assembly, said two connecting structures at least partially defining said first rotational axis,
a mount assembly connected to the vehicle and including an attachment assembly disposed and structured to rotationally interconnect said two arms of said support frame to a remainder of said mount assembly along a second rotational axis, and
said connector assembly and said attachment assembly cooperatively disposed to orient said first and second rotational axes in substantially perpendicular and intersecting relation to one another for concurrent rotation of the seat assembly relative thereto.

3 more elements

Dependencies are inferred from the claim text.