US Patent Issued to Otis Elevator on May 26 for "Escalator combplate retraction device" (Connecticut Inventor)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., May 26 -- United States Patent no. 12,637,331, issued on May 26, was assigned to Otis Elevator Co. (Farmington, Conn.).

"Escalator combplate retraction device" was invented by Randall Roberts (Hebron, Conn.).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "An escalator system includes a moving step including a plurality of grooves and drivable in a travel direction. A combplate is located at at least a downstream end of the moving step relative to the travel direction at a step-combplate interface. A retraction device is configured to move the combplate along the travel direction from a normal position toward a retracted position when an entrapment of an object is detected at the step-combplate...