US Patent Issued to PERMOBIL on Jan. 27 for "Self-aligning collapsible front add-on for a wheelchair" (Tennessee Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Jan. 28 -- United States Patent no. 12,533,272, issued on Jan. 27, was assigned to PERMOBIL INC. (Lebanon, Tenn.).

"Self-aligning collapsible front add-on for a wheelchair" was invented by William Alexander Emfinger (Nashville, Tenn.), Benjamin William Gasser (Nashville, Tenn.) and Benjamin Phillip Hemkens (Nashville, Tenn.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An alignment system for a wheelchair based steering column includes a fork assembly configured to carry a front wheel, a bearing coupled to the fork assembly, a tube member that receives the bearing and a portion of the fork assembly, a cam defining sloped cam surface leading to a recess, the cam positioned in the tube member...