ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,371,277, issued on July 29, was assigned to Illinois Tool Works Inc. (Glenview, Ill.).
"Accumulation device" was invented by Douglas Alan Imes (Greer, S.C.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An accumulation device for placement within a stream of articles upstream of an independent article handling device, including an infeed conveyor for receiving articles and an outfeed conveyor for returning articles. A transfer device movable along the infeed conveyor and the outfeed conveyor is included. Each of an infeed drive and an outfeed drive drives the conveyors. A speed of the outfeed drive controlled at least in part by the independent article ...