ALEXANDRIA, Va., June 5 -- United States Patent no. 12,276,139, issued on April 15, was assigned to Witte Automotive GmbH (Velbert, Germany).
"Locking device" was invented by Thorsten Janssen (Velbert, Germany), Dirk Janssen (Bergisch Gladbach, Germany) and Heinz-Joachim Klein (Haan, Germany).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A locking device for a movable vehicle element of a vehicle may have at least a rotary catch, a locking element and an associated blocking mechanism. The blocking mechanism may have at least one blocking element and a movable actuating element for locked coupling of the rotary catch and the locking element. The movable actuating element may be designed to move the rotary cat...