ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 18 -- United States Patent no. 12,325,494, issued on June 10, was assigned to Ipalco B.V. (Rotterdam, Netherlands).
"Mooring robot" was invented by Patrick Browne (Christchurch, New Zealand), Peter Worley (Lincoln, New Zealand) and Stephen Topliss (Christchurch, New Zealand).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A mechanism suitable to moor and/or connect, engage, fender, or couple a vessel to a terminal such a dock, wharf, pier, pontoon, floating structure, off-shore structure, or another vessel. Typically, mechanism is used in a mooring robot or fender and will comprises a base, the mechanism dependent from the base and supporting an element remote the base. The element may be...