Introduction Mattresses Cotton Foam How to Choose Frames Wood Mechanisms

4 Essays

Four Essays Once again Futon Life has tapped into several of the creative people who have made major contributions in the area of futon frame mechanics and design. Each one has played a part in helping this industry grow. Pete Dodge, Bob Fireman, Nikita Griegorev, and Ron Massey share their perspectives in the following essays. These essays appear in alphabetical order by author.

I think we all understand the basic principles of the patent system. The Government contracts with individuals, through the patent office, to make original ideas the personal property of their inventors. The theory is that the original thinking of the inventor is encouraged by a system that turns the idea into property that can be sold or licensed without being stolen (copied).

In order to receive patent protection inventors have to submit their ideas to the patent office along with a description of how that particular idea is different than all the other ideas that have come before it. The theory is that the patented idea is new— not like an idea that has already been patented, or an idea that has been previously used somewhere in the industry. So, does that mean that the new idea is also useful? Well, if you ask the inventors (like myself) the new idea is so fresh and clever that it will revolutionize it’s intended industry. But the reality is that the patented idea is just original, not necessarily more useful than other ideas that came before it.

So the patented device, in this case a futon conversion mechanism, is well regarded by the inventor or the company that has licensed production, but, of what value to the whole- sale and eventually the retail consumers?

The wholesaler, or the people that have licensed the device, are saying that here is a special and valuable product the benefits of which can only be had when you buy from them. As a retailer, or wholesale customer, you should understand the potential drawbacks as well as the touted benefits.

Not every new idea is a good idea. New ideas on the market may have unexpected or not predicted drawbacks that can show up after the product has been purchased and is being used in the customer’s house. A conversion mechanism may work well when all it’s parts are new and fresh and become cranky and difficult as parts wear. Oddly enough, the less new ground a product covers and the more conventional it’s hardware or component parts the less likely it is to fail during it’s warranty period.

Is the operation of the new product user friendly? The original customer got the operating instructions from the retailer when they bought the product. But, everyone that sleeps on that bed and tries to convert it the next morning may not have seen the operating manual. Ask yourself, is the operation of this conversion mechanism fairly obvious. Could someone change it from a bed back into a couch without a factory rep standing by? I confess to designing a product once that, when not carefully operated, would break. It was not the customer’s fault. We were all embarrassed and spent the next five years periodically replacing broken parts caused by this design error. A good rule might be to explore new manufacturing concepts with manufacturers that you trust to stand behind their products.

Another thing to consider is how appropriate the mechanism is to the rest of the product. I have seen glider mechanisms on simple futon frames that simply went back into a couch when the back was raised. To the customer that only intends to use the product occasionally this may be best. The frame is light, doesn’t really need to be a “wall hugger”, and since it will be a couch most of the time, it wont matter that it can’t be operated from the front or has to be pulled out away from the wall.

Products that feature heavy frames with lots of wooden parts may will benefit from being either front operating or wall huggers. A frame that will be a couch during the day and a bed at night will benefit from a robust mechanism that makes conversation easy.

Part of the trick to selling new concepts and ideas in the retail store is to not unsell other ideas being marketed elsewhere in the same store. Retail sales people should keep their approach positive, selling new concepts on one piece of furniture without unselling every other piece that doesn’t have that concept.

I would say, be open to new ideas and concepts and respect the originality of the supplier who is offering a patented product. But, stick with suppliers that stand behind their products and service their customer’s complaints. The supplier, or manufacturer should be a partner to the retailer not an adversary.

You can contact Peter Dodge at Peter Dodge & Associates: (715) 234-4265

History is what came to mind when Joe called me to write about mechanisms. When I started in the futon business in 1980, we were the equivalent of the caveman discovering fire and the wheel. Most everybody takes today's mechanisms for granted. They are basically sliders or metal hinges. Just as today's kids (and adults) think television, computers, push-button phones and milk containers were always there. Not true.

I thought reconstructing the early history of the futon industry from an anecdotal point of view might be interesting. Using the evolution of human history as a parallel I have broken up the futon time line into three periods: The first may be thought of as from primordial soup to the caveman, 1970-1978. The second is more like the beginning of civilization to the era of the industrial revolution, 1978-1990. Third is like the period from the industrial revolution to the present high-tech era of production and advances, 1990-1998.

Let's go back to the beginning of futon time, the early seventies, even before my time. What I am recounting may be more futon folklore than reality. In the beginning there were small isolated hippie naturalist stores selling all natural, all American futon mattresses. Other than sizes there were very few variations in style and your choice was limited by today's standard. The prices were high as were the profits.

The primary function of the futon was as a mattress on the floor hippie style (crash pads) or on a bed which was usually 6 - 12 inches off the ground with simple lines, and accompanied with a Japanese name (Qatari, Somu). If you wanted to use it as seating, which was not its main use, you would fold it in thirds and prop it against the wall.

When I entered the futon business, I couldn't believe how many people were interested in this product, and how much they would pay for this product. In those days, people were starting to move toward "natural is good, cotton is good, foam is bad". The trend was growing rapidly. The use of the futon was still limited to the way it was traditionally used in Japan.

I remember my first innovative design. It was nothing more than a plywood base one inch off the floor, with a metal tube bent in an inverted U and attached perpendicularly to the base. The futon was no longer dependent on a wall for support, it could be placed anywhere in the room. A major breakthrough I thought, who could expect more than this in advances?

So now we had two functions for futons that are very similar to the traditional use of the their original functions in Japan: basic seating and sleeping.

The year is 1979. Futons were sold primarily in the major avant-guarde cities, NYC, Boston, San Francisco, DC, Seattle. The competitive features ( if there was any competition) were the number of tufts in the futon, whether it was hand or machine made, the style in which the futon was sewn, and the weight of the fabric. That was the extent of the futon industry.

Remember the scene in 2001 where the ape realizes that he can make the wooden club a tool? I believe William Brouwer was our equivalent to that breakthrough in futon history. Brouwer designed the first futon frame, the A-frame. Though his factory was a small operation by todayÕs standards, his was the first factory that wholesaled a reputable product to other retailers, thereby initiating the futon industry. Until that time, all manufacturing was done in-house, from cover to futon mattress to frame.

That frame won awards for design. It was a radical design in furniture. Again what's now familiar, old hat and almost obsolete was then revolutionary. I personally thought that the frame was an odd-looking piece of furniture. The cost with mattress and cover was at least $600 in 1980 dollars. I could not understand why anybody would buy that when they were able to buy a sleep sofa for the same price. Brouwer had a hard time supplying the entire country. He told me his factory's capacity was 200 hundred frames a month (by the way he was the country's only supplier) and that you had to place your order a month in advance in to be assured of being supplied. I estimate today's monthly unit sales exceed 30,000 frames, not including metal frames.

Around 1982 the first surge of specialty store openings occurred. My little futon secret was no longer, and my monopoly in this business vanished. There were two or three stores copying my ideas. I started to see more people shopping my competition. My Eternal Spring was becoming finite. The communal spirit crossed over to entrepreneurial drive. This chain reaction was reflected by increased demand in the marketplace. Demand outpaced supply, a phenomenon that lasted until 1988. Out of necessity in order to supply my store in NYC, I entered the manufacturing realm. I found a small factory in Tennessee that was adventurous enough to try producing this strange product. This factory became known as "From the Source". (Remember them? They are part of history now.) It was the first major producer of hardwood frames.

Again it is important to realize that no one was thinking in terms of sofa frames as we know them today. Our mind set, as odd as it may sound now, was of the mattress as a tri-fold.

Ron Massey literally turned that mind set around, and put us into another space. He designed a sofa frame that looked similar to the Wright brothers' first model plane. I remember seeing the frame and counting the number of screws it took to assemble the frame--118 to be exact. I really remember the number - this is not an exaggeration. Thanks to Ron we entered the Renaissance of futon history.

What was important about Ron's design was that we had a base to build and improve upon. For you newcomers the first bi-fold was a peg frame. The back was supported by a peg going through the arms and into the sides of the back section.

Ingenious, I thought, and could not imagine any more progress toward improving that concept. From the beginning of futon time to this point was almost 15 years. More than half of the futon history.

However, after one year I kept thinking, there must be a way to improve this frame. So 15 years after the beginning of futon history, I introduced the now classical slider mechanism. It seemed to me that this idea was so revolutionary that everybody would stop their production and convert to this system. But in fact it took almost 5 years for the industry to convert to this system Too bad I wasn't smart enough to patent this idea. The people that held on to the peg system didn't want change because they thought "if it ain't broke don't fix it".

Who would ever have believed that there was any more room for improvement. Well there was, and From The Source created and patented the kicker so that the frame would be front opening.

From 1985 on the futon sales and manufacturing industry grew geometrically. For the first time production was outpacing demand. Many large foreign factories entered the market. Large discount centers started buying the product. The good news was that the futon became more mainstream. The bad news was that many of the specialty stores could not compete. I knew some that were sticking with selling only American goods. They either closed or compromised their ideals.

In the nineties the metal frame was introduced. This mechanism was again different from the traditional slider. The metal frame body and mechanism far outsells all the wooden frames today. With all the concerns about preserving the forests it is not unreasonable to guess that wood frames will become nearly obsolete in the future.

This brings me pretty much to date. So if any of you old timers are still around, I hope I have revived some memories of the good old days when the futon convention needed no more than a half a dozen meeting rooms to exhibit the designs of all the manufacturers and contain the traffic of one or two hundred buyers who would come to share the travails of the year, as well as meet the new entries in the market.

And to you new entries in the futon time-line, you are at the beginning of your history. I can't imagine that an even better frame and mechanism can be designed than what now exists. Yet if stars are continually born into our universe, then why can't a new idea be born into the ever expanding futon universe?

You can contact Bob Fireman at Liforms 1-800-233-6066

How do you get a patent? How do you come up with these ideas? These are two of the most frequent questions people ask me. You see, I’m an inventor/designer by training and profession, and although I can’t or won’t answer the second question I will attempt to address the first: how do you get a patent?

Well first, you come up with one of these ideas (see question two). Then you build something rather crude to prove (to yourself mostly) that the idea works. This is called “proof of concept” or POC. That the idea works is crucial to a utility patent, as it is called. Other intellectual property, such as trademarks, copyrights, even design patents don’t have to work, they just have to “be”. But a utility patent usually claims a mechanism or a process. Something that changes or moves from one state to another. Such as a futon frame: sofa to bed to sofa, etcetera. How it does it, is the subject matter of the utility patent and described in the claims of the patent.

So you’ve built this thing and it does work. At this point you definitely should exclaim “Eureka!” Some abstract or rationalistically inclined inventors would argue that “Eureka” is declared when you first get the great idea.

Anyhow, now you have to figure out “what good is it?” Because to merit a patent a device must not only be new and different (“not obvious to one skilled in the trade” as the feds put it) but it also has to be useful. Hmmm...That could be more difficult. Most inventions, even patents, (Let’s face it: it is big business.) tend to solve problems that don’t exist, but they do solve them. Whether an invention is useful is eventually answered by the market, and to muster up all the marketing savvy you have or don’t have, and then do some serious soul searching. This is hard because if you’re like me or like all other inventors, you think your invention is the greatest thing since sliced bread and everybody needs one. It’s your brain child and like any parent you think your baby is the cutest, and most talented ever. (Oops, sorry! I may have just stepped on about 4 billion sets of toes.)

Patents don’t come cheap, eight grand at least (big business, remember). So the only reason you decide to get one in the first place, is because it will make money for you. And the only way it will make money is if it will claim a market for you (forget “create a market”, unless your name is Gates). At the very least it must fill a “market gap” or be so much better and/or cheaper than all your competitors’ products. Also, don’t overlook what I call the phenomenon of “market inertia”. (More on this in another article, perhaps).

Anyhow, you’ve got the prototype and you’re pretty sure it’ll sell like hot cakes. Next step is to dig deeeep into your pockets. If your pockets aren’t deep enough, you’ll have to dig in someone else’s, dig? Because the patent attorney will listen to the disclosure of your invention very carefully. He or she will not laugh in your face or suddenly look a little sick. He or she will scribble something in code, and will request that you leave a retainer. Before parting with your money, be very sure that you are trusting your soul to the best. Because anything worth patenting is worth patenting well. Otherwise your competitors will do-se-do around your patent and you’ll be the proud owner of an $8,000.00 framed piece of paper, decorating the wall in your office.

Your patent attorney then does his/her thing and eventually submits your patent application to the government for approval. And you wait. And wait. It is now almost two years later and you’re almost $8k poorer and finally you get your answer back from the patent office. Rejected. Yup, rejected. Unbelievable! Undaunted, you and your $300.00 per hour attorney, redraft and restate and resubmit your application. “Final rejection” comes back the verdict. What gives?

This is exactly what happened to the Freedom FrameÑa hot new frame on the market. You know the product is good, and its already been “selling like hot cakes” (to quote one retailer) for a year. Some retailers have already named it “smart frame”. So what gives with the patent?

At this point my attorney and I stuffed two Freedom Frames and one futon into my Explorer and drove down to Washington, DC. Grunting and puffing, we manhandled the frames and futon through many doors, corridors, elevators, and finally plunked it all down right in the office of the patent examiner. We made the examiner sit in the frame. We showed him how it worked.

The examiner was impressed. He admitted that he hadn’t really understood it before. This was really neat. His expression changed. He started suggesting what to claim in the patent. The Freedom Frame patent ended up with even broader coverage than we had originally applied for. Based on the four bar linkage system (its own field in mechanical engineering), it created a futon frame that is ridiculously simple to operate. Simple because its so sophisticated. With a minimum of parts it creates a frame that is good looking, “very clean design” (retailer), very sturdy and yet every part is easily replaceable. But most important of all, it can be made and sold for a minimum price point. And that’s worth patenting.

You can contact Nikita Griegorev at Nikea: (315) 858-2184

On page 118 of WIRED (4.08), Peter Drucker, “the most astute observer of modern corporate society” says: “...There has been no case in history where the pioneer became the dominant producer...the most successful innovators are THE CREATIVE IMITATORS.

Some people are most proud of their creations, some are most proud of their wealth. Security can come from either. A creative person can invent a way out of a bad situation, a wealthy person can buy their way out.

Sometime in 1982 or ‘83, a very successful, well known NYC futon specialty retailer asked William Brouwer to design a new futon frame. What he came up with was truly great. It won design awards. It was built by Brouwer with love and respect for the wood, himself, the retailer and the end user.

It did not take too long before another NYC futon specialty retailer took the frame to Brazil to be knocked off. It did not take too long for William Brouwer to go out of business. The end user then had one choice. A poor quality reproduction of what was a truly great piece of functional furniture. The industry lost a very valuable innovator.

The solution would seem to be patents. I can tell you from my own experience designing a mechanism for one of the aforementioned NYC futon specialty retailers, (I won’t say which one), the whole patent thing is not only affordable only to the wealthy “Creative Imitators”, but somehow distracts from the process of creating something that you hope many will like. Creating or inventing is something you do that is somehow linked with a kind of sharing. Protecting that creation is not compatible with sharing.

It’s strange. When I attended the last Futon Expo in Phoenix, a couple of old time exhibitors would tell my friend Line that she was with the guy who started the whole thing with his version of the convertible bi-fold. Although I was proud of the size of the industry that I was credited with having done so much to boost, I could not help but wonder what was wrong with me. Why was I probably the least financially successful exhibitor at the show? Anyway, that’s one take.

Mechanisms are not everything. Futon furniture is the first furniture that was designed ready to assemble as well as dual purpose. Mechanisms deal with the dual purpose end of the product. The really fun part of designing futon stuff is fitting it into boxes. I had more fun getting my wall-hugger into a box small enough for U.P.S. That’s the sharing part. That’s the part that allows the product to get to the retailers who really enjoy the business of selling truly unique stuff. Those are the retailers who are having fun. They, however, are not the retailers who can afford to buy 200 frames at a time. So getting the frames into a small box is as much fun as inventing a mechanism that the end user will be able to convert effortlessly. The good part of dealing with retailers who are having fun is that they are more fun to deal with. It’s not the way to get rich, but life is short.

Soul. Futon furniture has soul. Futons are a true value. Futons are comfortable, healthy, and beautiful. We are lucky to be able to design and make things out of wood than allow that wood to enjoy a kind of reincarnation. Even though the tree is cut down, it continues to live.

As long as we replant another tree, we will always have more wood. Unfortunately, some of the people whose security comes only from wealth are less concerned about these things. We all know that most of the knock-offs come from countries where the need for immediate financial rewards is more important than the continuity of the forests. Although these knock-offs create employment for thousands of people who would otherwise go hungry, I think it is unfortunate that those workers are paid so little.

But were they not paid so little, they would be of little interest to the importers. If the importers were out of the picture, the consumers would probably benefit from more innovation because more innovators would be encouraged to keep doing what they do. But then, I suppose, the workers at those offshore factories would go hungry again. What would be good is if the people of those countries were allowed to express themselves as freely as we do here in America. Then they, too would become innovators. Then we would import stuff because it was good, not because it was cheap. Then those workers would probably earn more money per hour. But then the factory owners and the importers would probably have to really start contributing and be creative also.

My friend Richard Zafft, who owns Fly By Night Futons in Northampton, MA, told me last weekend that mechanisms were more important on mid range frames than on high end ones. The reason being that the people who could afford the high end frames normally use them as beds only a few times a year. The people who need to use the frames as beds as well as sofas everyday usually do so because of lack of funds. It made sense to me. I had never thought of it that way. It makes it even more fun when you realize that the stuff you come up with is for the people who really need value for their money. THE RICH DON’T NEED MECHANISMS. THE INNOVATORS DON’T GET RICH. Make sense to you?

You can contact Ron Massey at Horndove: 1-819-849-9464

The opinions expressed in each of the preceding essays are those of the authors only.-Editor