ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 29 -- United States Patent no. 12,209,449, issued on Jan. 28.
"Power-assistance device" was invented by Johannes Geng (Freiburg, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A power-assist device (1) with a piston rod (8), which is mounted movably in a housing (7) and has a first position and a second position, and with a preferably elastic return element (12), which can be arrested by a positionally variable arresting part (10) and which, in the unlocked state, can transmit an assisting force to the piston rod (8) and, in the arrested state, is decoupled in terms of force from the piston rod (8), such that, in the unlocked state, as a result of the piston rod (8) being moved ...