ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 30 -- United States Patent no. 12,371,947, issued on July 29, was assigned to Vermeer Manufacturing Co. (Pella, Iowa).
"Horizontal directional drill with freewheel mode" was invented by Ethan Roth (Pella, Iowa), Jason Morgan (Pleasantville, Iowa) and Brad Pinkerton (New Sharon, Iowa).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A horizontal directional drilling machine includes a drill string rotational drive unit having an output member configured to connect with and selectively drive rotation of a drill string, the rotational drive unit including a hydraulic motor. A hydraulic circuit has a configuration that puts the motor in a drive mode to apply torque and a second configuration t...