US Patent Issued to United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force on Oct. 14 for "Variable payload launch device" (Colorado, South Carolina, Minnesota, Illinois, Missouri, Texas Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Oct. 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,442,622, issued on Oct. 14, was assigned to United States of America as represented by the Secretary of the Air Force (Wright-Patterson AFB, Ohio).

"Variable payload launch device" was invented by Michael Anderson (Colorado Springs, Colo.), Grant Appel (O'Fallon, Ill.), Seth Konig (El Dorado Hills, Colo.), George Gardner (Butler, Mo.), Shawn Mathis (Waco, Texas), William Yates (Columbia, S.C.), John Olson (Lakeville, Minn.) and Hugh Briggs (Colorado Springs, Colo.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A spring loaded device for launching projectiles in a hostile environment. The device has an articulable launch assembly. The launch assembly has...