ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 6 -- United States Patent no. 12,280,677, issued on April 22, was assigned to Siemens Mobility GmbH (Munich).
"Current collector for a rail vehicle" was invented by Roland Plabst (Alling, Germany) and Dieter Wendler (Aschaffenburg, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A current collector for a rail vehicle intended for international transport includes a support bringing two contact strips into electrically conductive contact with a contact wire on the roof of the rail vehicle. Each contact strip has a first length and a contact strip extension at each end. Each contact strip extension is rotatably mounted and connected to a respective end of the contact strip. In a fir...