US Patent Issued to Panasonic Intellectual Property Management on July 14 for "Lens barrel, camera comprising same, and rotational position sensing device" (Japanese Inventors)

ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 14 -- United States Patent no. 12,681,260, issued on July 14, was assigned to Panasonic Intellectual Property Management Co. Ltd. (Osaka, Japan).

"Lens barrel, camera comprising same, and rotational position sensing device" was invented by Takeshi Sakakibara (Osaka, Japan) and Naoki Yoshikawa (Osaka, Japan).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A lens barrel 100 includes a fifth lens group unit 25, a focus ring 31, an internal gear 31b, a pinion gear 41, a detection magnet 43, and a GMR sensor 44. The internal gear 31b rotates integrally with the focus ring 31 and has a plurality of gear portions 31c. The pinion gear 41 is provided on the inner peripheral surface side of the foc...