ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 24 -- United States Patent no. 12,560,458, issued on Feb. 24, was assigned to MINEBEA MITSUMI Inc. (Nagano, Japan).
"Absolute encoder" was invented by Katsunori Saito (Kanagawa, Japan), Yasuo Osada (Saitama, Japan), Hiroki Negishi (Tokyo) and Norikazu Sato (Saitama, Japan).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An absolute encoder includes a spindle gear fixed to a motor shaft, a permanent magnet provided on the spindle gear, and a first driven gear having a center axis perpendicular to a center axis of a worm gear portion, and engaging the worm gear portion. The absolute encoder includes a second driving gear provided coaxially with the first driven gear and rotating according t...