Hunter Douglas,inc.

Kristi K Kopecky

Wendell B Colson

Daniel M Fogarty

David P Hartman

Ralph G Jelic

Marjorie G Harper

James M Anthony

A retractable cover for architectural openings having collapsible vanes includes a support structure in the form of a sheet of material, monofilaments, tapes, ribbons, cords, or the like, supporting an upper edge of a plurality of vertically spaced, horizontally extending vanes with the lower edges of the vanes in most embodiments of the invention being connected to operating elements adapted to raise the lower edges of each vane toward the upper edges to define openings or gaps between the vanes through which vision and light can pass in an open condition of the covering. Variations of the covering do not require movement of a lower edge of a vane relative to an upper edge but simply movement of some vanes relative to other vanes. The vanes can be made of materials having different flexibilities and where more rigid materials are used, creased fold lines can be established for desired operability.

Retractable shade with collapsible vanes

A covering for an architectural opening includes a roller assembly having a rotatable roller secured to one edge of a sheet of flexible material with the opposite edge secured thereabove to a fixed location. The roller assembly is cradled in a cord ladder or cord ladder type element so one vertical run of the cord ladder is anchored and the other vertical run is raised or lowered to raise and lower the cradle thereby causing the flexible material to be wrapped around or unwrapped from the roller. The roller assemblies can be used individually or in combination with like roller assemblies and can further be used in combination with other covering products such as sheets of translucent or transparent materials like sheer fabric. In addition to being able to roll and unroll the strips of flexible material onto or from their associated rollers, an entire assemblage of such roller assemblies can be raised or lowered with a closed loop lifting system that raises a bottom rail and accumulates each roller assembly thereabove to any desired degree between a fully extended position and a fully retracted position.

Segmented roll up covering for architectural openings

Growing community of inventors

Westminster, CO, United States of America

Kristi K Kopecky