Patent ID: 8550012

Claim:
A folding table device, comprising: a) a tabletop with a bottom; b) a leg with a proximal end pivotally coupled to the bottom of the tabletop and having: i) an open extended orientation with the leg oriented perpendicular to the tabletop to elevate the tabletop above a support surface with the leg extending between the tabletop and the support surface, and ii) a closed retracted orientation with the leg oriented parallel with the tabletop; c) a pair of links pivotally coupled together and pivotally coupled in series between the tabletop and the leg, the pair of links having: i) an extended configuration corresponding to the open extended orientation of the leg in which the pair of links are aligned with one another in series and oriented transverse to both the tabletop and the leg to hold the leg in the open extended orientation, and ii) a retracted configuration corresponding to the closed retracted orientation of the leg in which the pair of links are parallel with the leg and the tabletop; d) the pair of links, the tabletop and the leg forming a four-bar, four-pivot linkage including four pivots and four bars defined between the pivots and having: i) an open configuration corresponding to the open extended orientation of the leg and the extended configuration of the pair of links, and ii) a closed configuration corresponding to the closed retracted orientation of the leg and the retracted configuration of the pair of links; e) one of the pair of links slidably abuts the leg or the tabletop to resist movement of the linkage through an intermediate binding configuration between the open and closed configurations; and f) at least one of the pivots or at least one of the bars or both being movable or bendable or both in the binding configuration to allow the linkage to move through the binding configuration between the open and closed configurations.