ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,351,124, issued on July 8, was assigned to Joyson Safety Systems Acquisition LLC (Auburn Hills, Mich.).
"Seat belt pretensioner" was invented by Mark Gray (Macomb, Mich.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A seat belt pretensioner for a seat belt device in a vehicle, the pretensioner including a frame, a ball housing attached to the frame and a drive wheel located within the ball housing. A spool is connected to the drive wheel and is fixed to one end of a seat belt webbing so that the webbing may be wound around the spool. The pretensioner further includes a pipe connected to the ball housing and a gas generator connected to the pipe. At leas...