ALEXANDRIA, Va., July 21 -- United States Patent no. 12,687,206, issued on July 21, was assigned to Robert Bosch GmbH (Stuttgart, Germany).

"Drive device for a drive unit of an electric bike, drive unit and electric bike" was invented by Heiko Roehm (Stuttgart, Germany), Julian Binder (Wannweil, Germany), Dietmar Saur (Moessingen, Germany), Christoph Zimmermann (Nehren, Germany), Lukas Mueller (Stuttgart, Germany), Wolfgang Hau (Metzingen, Germany), Sigmund Braun (Kusterdingen, Germany), Joachim Klima (Kusterdingen, Germany), Stefan Holst (Reutlingen, Germany) and Alexander Nau (Eningen Unter Achalm, Germany).

According to the abstract* released by the U.S. Patent & Trademark Office: "A drive device for a drive unit of an electric bicycle...