Patent 7108306 was granted and assigned to Honda on September, 2006 by the United States Patent and Trademark Office.
The invention provides a seat stowing system for stowing in a floor recess (16) a seat (15) with a seat back (22, 23) tipped forward to fold it against a seat cushion (21). The stowing system (20) includes a seat back forward-tipping mechanism for automatically tipping the seat back forward and a swinging mechanism (30) for automatically swinging the folded seat back and the seat cushion as one. The seat back forward-tipping mechanism and the swinging mechanism are drive-controlled by a control unit, and the operation of stowing the seat in the floor recess is thus made electric.