ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 3 -- United States Patent no. 12,539,528, issued on Feb. 3, was assigned to ISHIDA EUROPE Ltd. (Birmingham, Great Britain).
"Slack separation apparatus and method" was invented by Nickolas Martin Clark (Sedgley, Great Britain).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Disclosed are a hopper, method and system comprising the hopper for separating slack from a mixture of product and slack, the hopper comprising a first gate that is moveable between respective open and closed positions; and a slack removal body the first gate and the slack removal body being arranged such that, when the first gate is in its closed position, they define a first product receiving volume therebetween wher...