Importance

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Abstract

A refrigerator cabinet has a food storage compartment bounded by front facing vertical and horizontal walls. A pair of French doors are pivotally mounted to the refrigerator cabinet to close the open front of the refrigerator. In the closed position the doors have vertically extending confronting walls which include an intermediate sealing gasket extending along a major vertical portion of the confronting walls which are adapted to sealingly engage against each other to form a vertically extending seal. Upper and lower corner sealing gasket members are respectively positioned above and below the intermediate sealing gasket members and adjacent a corresponding horizontal wall of the cabinet. Each of the corner sealing gasket members has a first sealing surface adjacent the intermediate sealing gasket member to complete the vertical seal between the confronting walls of the doors when the doors are in a closed position. The corner sealing gaskets further include a second sealing surface generally orthogonal to the first sealing surface. The second sealing surface in an open position has one vertically extending outwardly protruding ridge contracting the second sealing surface to withdraw the first sealing surface back from its vertical sealing position. The ridge engages one of the horizontal walls as the door closes so as to flatten the second sealing surface into sealing engagement with this horizontal wall and to advance the first sealing surface towards the location of the vertical seal position. Magnetic strips are also located in the corner sealing gasket members to facilitate the sealing of the first sealing surfaces to each other and to the front facing horizontal wall.

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First Claim