ALEXANDRIA, Va., March 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,247,676, issued on March 11, was assigned to AUMA Riester GmbH & Co. KG (Mullheim, Germany).
"Use of a ball screw, and actuating drive assembly" was invented by Benjamin Hofmann (Heitersheim, Germany) and Holger Graf (Freital, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An actuating drive (2) including a ball screw drive (3) for activating a self-closing, linearly activated fitting (4) and a method of use are provided. While the opening of the fitting (4) with the actuating drive (2) takes place by an electric motor by the ball screw drive (3), a restoring movement is transmitted to the spindle (6) when closing the automatically closing fitt...