US Patent Issued to Electronic Theatre Controls on April 21 for "Digital interface for a manual counterweight hoist" (Wisconsin Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., April 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,606,424, issued on April 21, was assigned to Electronic Theatre Controls Inc. (Middleton, Wis.).

"Digital interface for a manual counterweight hoist" was invented by Timothy P. Nolan (Madison, Wis.), Kenric Gibbs (Dane, Wis.) and Steven Ricks (Lodi, Wis.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A manually operated counterweight hoist including a batten operable to support a load, an arbor operable to support one or more counterweights, a hand line operable to move the batten or the arbor, a brake operable to prevent movement of the arbor and the batten by constricting movement of the hand line, a brake actuator operable to activate the brake, a s...