US Patent Issued to VMI HOLLAND on May 20 for "Spacer gripper, bead-apex storage system and method for handling a plurality of stacks with bead-apexes and spacers" (Dutch Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 16 -- United States Patent no. 12,304,165, issued on May 20, was assigned to VMI HOLLAND B.V. (Epe, Netherlands).

"Spacer gripper, bead-apex storage system and method for handling a plurality of stacks with bead-apexes and spacers" was invented by Keimpe Theunis Bijl (Epe, Netherlands) and Antonius Willibrordus Joseph Stout (Epe, Netherlands).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "Disclosed is a spacer gripper, a bead-apex storage system and a method for lifting one or more of the spacers from a stack of bead-apexes, wherein each spacer has a central aperture, wherein the central apertures of the spacers in the stack of bead-apexes are aligned in a stacking direction to form a ce...