US Patent Issued to Caterpillar on May 13 for "Retainer for rotary cone drill bit" (Indian Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,297,698, issued on May 13, was assigned to Caterpillar Inc. (Peoria, Ill.).

"Retainer for rotary cone drill bit" was invented by Swetha Suresh (Chennai, India), Ebi Bernard (Arakkonam, India), Tamilmurasu Annadurai (Pudukkottai, India) and Chetan Dahiwal (Navalleer, India).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "This disclosure describes, in part, systems and structures for a rotary cone drill bit having a body and rolling cone cutters, wherein the rolling cone cutters are coupled to the body through a bearing retention interface including ball bearings in a captured channel between the body and the rolling cone cutters. The ball bearings are inse...