The Socket That Closes Itself A Child Seat Fitting That Leaves No Hole When the Canopy Comes Off

This application covers a joint for detachably fixing one object to another, aimed at attaching a removable canopy to a child safety seat. It has three parts: a socket built into the seat, a plug on the end of the canopy rod, and a sprung lid inside the socket that covers the opening whenever the plug is not there. Push the plug in and the lid retreats ahead of it; pull the plug out and the lid springs back to seal the hole. It was filed by Wonderland Switzerland AG, part of the nursery products group behind the Nuna and Joie brands.

The Problem

The specification’s background is brief and describes two shortcomings. The first is that child safety seats generally are not fitted with a canopy at all, which it says is a problem when the seat is used in an open topped vehicle or outdoors. The second is that where a canopy is fitted, it is usually built as a permanent part of the seat and is not convenient to remove.

Both point at the same underlying difficulty. A canopy that can be taken off has to attach through a removable joint, and a removable joint means a socket that is empty for as much of the product’s life as it is filled. On a seat body that is otherwise a smooth moulded shell, an empty socket is an open hole on each side, on a product that spends its life carrying a small child and collecting crumbs, spilled drinks and small objects. The specification puts the consequence plainly at the end of the description: the goal is a joint in which significant holes are not presented when the canopy is removed.

A third constraint sits behind the design without being stated as a problem. The joint has to be firm enough that a canopy does not work loose in a moving vehicle, while still coming apart when a parent wants it off, without tools.

What This Invention Does

Claim 1 defines a joint structure with three elements: an inserting part, a fixing part with an open end that the inserting part goes into, and a closing member held inside the fixing part and free to move within it. The claim then defines the behaviour by two conditions. When the inserting part is not inserted, the closing member closes the open end. When the inserting part is inserted and connected, the closing member has moved away from the open end and now sits between the fixing part and the inserting part.

That is the whole of claim 1, and it is worth noting how little it recites. There is no spring, no stopper, no release button and no seat. Those appear later: claim 6 is a version defined by an elastic member biasing the closing member toward the inserting part, claim 14 is the child safety seat combination, and claim 17 is the fixing part, closing member and spring taken on their own without any inserting part at all.

The described embodiment fills in the mechanism. The fixing part is a cylindrical wall embedded in a receiving chamber in the seat body, with a non circular cross section, roughly rectangular with two curved sides, so a matching plug cannot rotate once seated. A stopper protrudes inward from the wall, between one third and one half of the way down. The closing member is a plate shaped part sitting behind that stopper, pushed toward the opening by a spring, with barbs that hook onto the stopper from below so it cannot pop out. The plate matches the shape of the opening and sits substantially flush with it.

The plug carries outward protrusions with slots cut either side, which lets them flex inward as the plug travels past the stopper and then snap out behind it. Pushing the plug in drives the closing plate down against its spring, and the plate ends up trapped between the base of the socket and the end of the plug. In an alternative version, a release button extending through the plug takes over the locking job and the protrusions become unnecessary.

Key Features

• A lid that lives inside the socket. The closing member is a captive part of the fixing part rather than a separate cap that can be lost, held in by barbs hooking over the same stopper the plug locks against.
• Position defined by state, not by structure. Claim 1 is written around where the closing member sits when the plug is absent and where it sits when the plug is present, a broader form of claim than one reciting a particular latch.
• Spring loaded return. An elastic member between the base of the socket and the closing member pushes the lid back to the opening the moment the plug is withdrawn.
• Rotation locked by shape. The socket has a non circular cross section, roughly rectangular with two arc shaped sides, so a matching plug cannot twist once inserted.
• Flexing protrusions for easy fitting. Slots cut either side of each outward protrusion let it deflect past the stopper on insertion and release with minimal force on removal, a variation on a standard snap fit joint. A button passing through the plug can do the locking instead.
• A folding canopy at the same joint. In the seat claims, a second canopy rod fitting is pivotally connected to the first, so the two rods rotate relative to each other and the canopy folds where it attaches.
• Not limited to seats. The specification states the joint can be used to join any two objects, and the broadest claims are written to the joint alone.

Who Is Behind It

Wonderland Switzerland AG is the Swiss arm of the Wonderland Group, a nursery products manufacturer established in 1983 with operations across China, Taiwan, Hong Kong, the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, the Netherlands, Switzerland and Australia. The group makes car seats, strollers, travel cots and highchairs, reaching consumers through brands including Nuna, Joie, Graco, Aprica and Chicco, and was the first manufacturer in the Asia Pacific region to obtain GREENGUARD Gold certification for car seats.

The named inventor is Daliang Zhang.

The priority chain is set out clearly in the specification. This application is a divisional of Australian application 2022351379, which was the national phase entry of international application PCT/EP2022/076386, filed under the Patent Cooperation Treaty. That international application claims priority from Chinese patent application 202111108106.X, so the priority country is China, with the international phase run through the European Patent Office as receiving office.

Why It Matters

Child restraint design in Australia is governed by mandatory standards, and the Australian Design Rules administered by the Department of Infrastructure sit alongside the consumer product safety regime run by the ACCC. Anything that attaches to a restraint has to be assessed against those rules, and a canopy is the kind of accessory that becomes easier to certify and to sell if it detaches cleanly, since the seat can then be tested and used in its bare configuration.

The commercial pressure behind a removable canopy is real. Sun exposure is treated seriously in Australian and Southern European markets, and the same seat shells are now sold in travel systems that move between car, stroller base and carry position. A canopy taken off for washing, or left off for a car trip and clipped on outdoors, only works if the seat looks finished in both states.

That is the narrow but genuine contribution here. The engineering problem is not attaching a canopy; that has been solved many times. It is what the product looks like in the half of its life when the canopy is off. Filing a divisional in Australia in 2026 on a 2021 Chinese priority suggests the group intends to keep scope open on the joint itself rather than only on the seat, which fits the specification’s statement that it can be used between any two objects.

Related Concepts

• Child safety seat – the product the joint is designed for, and the subject of the combination claims.
• Snap-fit – the fastening principle behind the flexing protrusions that lock the plug into the socket.
• Bayonet mount – a familiar alternative approach to quick release joints, which this design deliberately avoids by locking rotation.
• Isofix – the standardised anchoring system that shapes how modern child restraints are built and certified.
• Australian Design Rules – the national vehicle standards that any restraint accessory has to be assessed against.
• Patent Cooperation Treaty – the international filing route that carried this family from China into Australia.

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AU 2026202117 was published in the Australian Official Journal of Patents on 9 April 2026 and is open for public inspection. Patent applications represent inventions that are sought to be protected and do not necessarily reflect commercially available products.