ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 4 -- United States Patent no. 12,320,219, issued on June 3, was assigned to Vermeer Manufacturing Co. (Pella, Iowa).
"Horizontal directional drill with freewheel mode" was invented by Jacob Rewerts (Altoona, Iowa), Zach Buckley (Ankeny, Iowa) and Robert D. Franz (Independence, 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 th...