ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,446,750, issued on Oct. 21, was assigned to Origyn LLC (Wayland, Mass.).
"Flexible flap for use on a cleaning tool" was invented by Jason Thorne (Dover, Mass.) and Sam Liu (Suzhou, China).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A flexible flap coupled to the bottom of a cleaning tool is designed to have a distal end that contacts the floor and scrapes along the floor as the cleaning tool is moved across the floor in order to help guide debris into a catch tray. The flexible flap also has a design such that the distal end can curl inwards after interaction with an obstacle (e.g., recess or protrusion of the floor surface) and continue to move acros...