Timothy W. Terleski of Richardson, Staci Ault Mininger of Garland and Rik Westerink of Corinth recently received U.S. Patent 8,152,234 for “Amenity Pocket.”

Texas Business reports:  Three Texans have designed a better way to hold your magazines and stuff in your passenger seat.

Timothy W. Terleski of Richardson, Staci Ault Mininger of Garland and Rik Westerink of Corinth recently received U.S. Patent 8,152,234 for “Amenity Pocket.”

 The three applied for the patent two years ago on March 10, 2010.

The patent assignee is Weber Aircraft LLC of Gainesville.

The field of the invention relates to amenity pockets for passenger seats, according to the patent documents.

Many vehicle seats such as those on passenger aircraft, buses, trains and the like have installed thereon a pocket for the convenient storage of literature, games, puzzles, and other entertainment objects. These pockets have traditionally been designed to provide minimal protection to the objects themselves and to accommodate objects of a size and/or weight equal to or lesser than a typical book or other literature.

In some circumstances, it may be desirable to utilize the pocket storage of passenger seats to store items requiring greater volume and/or load bearing capacity than what has traditionally been provided by these pockets. In some instances, it may also be desirable to improve the stiffness and protection capability provided by these pockets as well to store various kinds of objects such as personal computers, portable DVD players, E-book readers, and other electronic devices that may require more protective storage than is offered by current pocket designs.

The Texans’ invention includes an amenity pocket comprising a rigid structure, a vehicle surface, and a deployment mechanism. The rigid structure includes a back, a base, and two sides. The deployment mechanism may include at least two gussets, wherein each gusset is coupled to the vehicle surface and coupled to one side of the rigid structure. In some embodiments, the deployment mechanism provides a non-zero deployment angle of the rigid structure relative to the vehicle surface. In some embodiments, the amenity pocket is coupled to a passenger seat back. In other embodiments, a mounting structure comprising a base may be pivotally coupled to the base of the rigid structure and coupled to the vehicle surface.

An interior surface of the rigid structure may be coupled to a filler. In some embodiments, the filler may be coupled to a protective surface. In other embodiments, an exterior surface of the rigid structure may be coupled to a cover.

The amenity pocket may be deployed by providing a vehicle surface, pivotally coupling the vehicle surface to the base of the rigid structure, providing a deployment mechanism that sets a deployment angle of the rigid structure relative to the vehicle surface, providing a latch to releasably couple the rigid structure to the vehicle surface, releasing the latch to disengage the rigid structure from the vehicle surface, and rotating the rigid structure to the deployment angle.