ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,442,427, issued on Oct. 14, was assigned to MEIDENSHA Corp. (Tokyo).
"Reverse force mechanism" was invented by Takuya Shimokawa (Shinagawa-ku, Japan) and Yuichi Nishikiori (Shinagawa-ku, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A reverse force mechanism includes a main shaft, a main link, a movable shaft, an actuating link, a slider, an actuating shaft, a spring link, and a spring shaft. A reverse force spring is attached to the spring link. The spring shaft is fixed to a position a dimension away in a direction parallel to the slider from a base point on an extension of a line segment from the main shaft to the movable shaft when in an inse...