The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document.
The patent badge is an abbreviated version of the USPTO patent document. The patent badge covers the following: Patent number, Date patent was issued, Date patent was filed, Title of the patent, Applicant, Inventor, Assignee, Attorney firm, Primary examiner, Assistant examiner, CPCs, and Abstract. The patent badge does contain a link to the full patent document (in Adobe Acrobat format, aka pdf). To download or print any patent click here.
Patent No.:
Date of Patent:
Jan. 15, 2002
Filed:
Apr. 18, 2000
Jack M. Van Ert, Rochester Hills, MI (US);
George B. Byma, Haar, DE;
Lear Corporation, Southfield, MI (US);
Abstract
An apparatus for forming an article from at least one layer of formable material includes a mold for receiving the at least one layer of formable material. The mold has first and second thin mold sections and a seal associated with at least one of the mold sections for effecting a sufficiently sealed relationship between the mold sections. Each mold section has a non-planar configuration, and one mold section has at least one aperture. A vacuum source is in fluid communication with the at least one aperture for applying a vacuum pressure to the at least one aperture when the mold sections are sufficiently sealed together in order to reduce air pressure within the mold. As a result, ambient air pressure is used to forcefully bias the mold sections sufficiently together so as to form the at least one layer of formable material to a contour corresponding to the non-planar configurations of the mold sections. Furthermore, each mold section is sufficiently rigid such that the mold sections do not substantially flex when the mold sections are forcefully biased together.