US Patent Issued to Caterpillar on April 14 for "Retention system for attaching tool bits to a blade assembly" (Illinois Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 15 -- United States Patent no. 12,601,159, issued on April 14, was assigned to Caterpillar Inc. (Peoria, Ill.).

"Retention system for attaching tool bits to a blade assembly" was invented by David Bruno Parzynski Jr. (Peoria, Ill.) and Thomas Marshall Congdon (Dunlap, Ill.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An orientation plate comprises a rectangular body defining a top surface, a bottom surface, a front surface, a back surface, a first end surface, a second end surface, and a thickness that is the minimum dimension of the body, and a plurality of apertures extending through the thickness of the body, each aperture defining a perimeter having at least one orientation flat....