US Patent Issued to Stryker on April 8 for "Patient transport apparatus with controlled drive member deployment" (Michigan, Arkansas Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 9 -- United States Patent no. 12,268,638, issued on April 8, was assigned to Stryker Corp. (Portage, Mich.).

"Patient transport apparatus with controlled drive member deployment" was invented by Anish Paul (Kalamazoo, Mich.), Richard A. Derenne (Portage, Mich.), Fanqi Meng (Bentonville, Ark.), Krishna Sandeep Bhimavarapu (Kalamazoo, Mich.) and Jeffrey Alan Kennedy (Kalamazoo, Mich.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A patient transport apparatus transports a patient over a floor surface. The patient transport apparatus comprises a support structure and support wheels coupled to the support structure. An auxiliary wheel is coupled to the support structure to influence motion...