ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,296,394, issued on May 13, was assigned to CITIZEN WATCH Co. LTD. (Tokyo) and CITIZEN MACHINERY Co. LTD. (Nagano, Japan).
"Chuck device" was invented by Sakae Nakazawa (Kitasaku-gun, Japan) and Masao Sakai (Niza, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A chuck device for holding a plate material workpiece supplied to a machine tool without deforming the workpiece is provided. A housing has a workpiece contact surface arranged to face workpiece holding claws, and when holding of a workpiece is released, a plurality of rods integrally swings so that the workpiece holding claws are moved away from the workpiece contact surface of the housing a...