ALEXANDRIA, Va., Feb. 17 -- United States Patent no. 12,553,747, issued on Feb. 17, was assigned to MITUTOYO Corp. (Kanagawa-Ken, Japan).
"Measuring instrument with arc encoder tracks" was invented by Ted Staton Cook (Kirkland, Wash.).
According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A measuring instrument includes a movable portion configured to rotate in an arc motion about a pivot portion, and an electronic position encoder configured to measure an absolute relative position between a detector portion and a scale portion, one of which forms part of the movable portion. In the detector portion, first and second scale element portions of first and second track portions are arc-shaped and parallel to each other....