ALEXANDRIA, Va., Sept. 10 -- United States Patent no. 12,409,564, issued on Sept. 9.
"System and method for retrieving objects" was invented by Henry Hardy Perritt Jr. (Charlottesville, Va.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A manually operated, multi-implement hand tool, featuring a wand with a selectable end-effector system that includes a broom-and-dustpan, a grabber, an adhesive foot, and a magnet for picking up lightweight items. The tool incorporates a purely mechanical selection mechanism utilizing either a rotating carousel with precision ball bearings and gear reduction or a sliding rail system with grooved detents. Each implement includes specialized mechanical features: a spring-loaded...