US Patent Issued to Magna Exteriors on Aug. 11 for "Five and six bar linkage mechanisms for vehicle steps" (Canadian Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., Aug. 12 -- United States Patent no. 12,703,304, issued on Aug. 11, was assigned to Magna Exteriors Inc. (Aurora, Canada).

"Five and six bar linkage mechanisms for vehicle steps" was invented by V-Bond Lee (Newmarket, Canada), Chi Zhang (Burnaby, Canada), Desmond P Jamieson (Toronto) and Jerry Godfrey (Schomberg, Canada).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "All designs have features that prevent the running boards from over deploying and stowing. This ensures the mechanism does not exceed the design range of motion and prevents any excess forces on the system or vehicle. All designs use kinematic locks to prevent back driving in stowed and deployed positions, which allows more effici...