ALEXANDRIA, Va., Nov. 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,473,766, issued on Nov. 18, was assigned to Hettich-ONI GmbH & Co. KG (Vlotho, Germany).
"Item of furniture" was invented by Ralf Tofall (Buckeburg, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A piece of furniture includes a furniture body with an upper floor, a flap, and least one flap fitting arranged on the upper floor in order to hold the flap movably between a position closing a storage space of the furniture body and an opening position. The flap fitting includes a housing, on which a support arm is rotatably mounted, which includes a retaining element for fixing the flap, and an energy store for applying a force to the support arm. A d...