ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,320,159, issued on June 3, was assigned to Schlage Lock Co. LLC (Carmel, Ind.).
"Axial clutch mechanism" was invented by Tejas V. Kumar (Bangalore, India), Paul R. Arlinghaus (Fishers, Ind.) and Nelson Jenkins (Indianapolis).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An exemplary trim assembly comprises an escutcheon, a drive spindle, a lock mechanism, a cam mechanism, and a driver. The drive spindle is mounted to the escutcheon for rotation about a longitudinal axis. The lock mechanism includes a lock gear movably mounted in the escutcheon. The cam mechanism includes a first cam defined by the escutcheon and a second cam defined by the lock gear. The...